The Catholic University of America

CUA Global Programs and Initiatives

The Catholic University of America offers an of globally-oriented programs, services and initiatives sponsored by both its academic and co-curricular units. Global education is incorporated both into CUA's academic curriculum and social fiber. The web site of the Center for Global Education's will attempt to list all CUA international activities so that they may be easily accessible. While this list may not be comprehensive, it will be continuously updated. To have a CUA international program or initiative added to or removed from list, please contact the Center for Global Education at 202-319-5618 or cua-cge@cua.edu.

Alumni Affairs

CUA's Alumni Affairs organizes overseas trips for its alumni and friends. Recent overseas trips include a summer tour to Tuscany, Italy, a fall tour to Ireland and a spring tour to Holland and Belgium. Future Alumni Affairs/Center for Global Education collaborative overseas tours which will be open to CUA alumni, students, staff, faculty and the general public are in the pipeline as well. Stay tuned!

School of Architecture and Planning (CUArch)
Foreign Studies Program

In coordination with CUAbroad, the School of Architecture and Planning offers semester-long education abroad programs to architecture students in Paris, Barcelona, Rome and Helsinki. To accommodate the wide variety of interests within our undergraduate and graduate student-body, the school offers an extensive variety of architecture travel-study programs ranging from two-week trips to Asia, Europe and South America, to complete semesters abroad in Europe. For more information, contact David Shove-Brown, Associate Dean and Director of Foreign Studies at the School of Architecture.

Athletics

Women's Soccer Spring Break Trip to England: CUA's Women's Soccer team travelled to Liverpool, England between during Spring Break 2008 on a trip organized by Women's Soccer Head Coach, JP Sousa. CUA Women's Soccer team trained for five days at the Liverpool FC Academy under the guidance of the LFC professional coaching staff. The trip included games, practice sessions and sightseeing. For more information, contact J.P. Sousa.

Women's Field Hockey Summer Trip to Argentina: CUA Field Hockey head coach, Gia Cillizza, took a group of 17 CUA field hockey players and accompanying coaches for a 10 day trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina in August 2008. The trip included games, practice sessions, a service project, and sightseeing. For more information, contact  Gia Cillizza.

Women's Basketball Summer Trip to Ireland: The CUA’s Women’s Basketball team traveled to Ireland during the summer 2009.  During their stops in Belfast and Dublin, The Lady Cardinals trained with and competed against some of the best club programs that the Emerald Island has to offer.  While there, the CUA Women immersed themselves in the rich Irish culture by conducting clinics for the youth of Northern Ireland, taking in a bit of Irish Dancing, engaging in traditional Gaelic Sports, and touring the Irish country side.  For more information, contact Matt Donohue.

Men's Soccer Summer Trip to England: CUA's Men's Soccer team will travel to England (London and Manchester) during the summer 2010 to both train and watch local games. For more information, contact Travis Beauchamp.

Campus Ministry: Overseas Mission Trips

Every year approximately 65 CUA students spend their spring break or two weeks during their summer break to volunteer in cities across the country and the world. Through these various service opportunities, the students have the privilege to meet, serve, and be welcomed by the poorest of the poor. Hearts are changed, eyes are opened, and the desire to serve is ignited. The first mission trip began in the summer of 2001, when a group of students went to Guatemala to help in the local schools and farms. Since then, trips have included Mission Jamaica, Mission Panama, Mission Honduras, Mission Belize and Mission Tanzania.

School of Canon Law: Spring Break Trip to Rome

The School of Canon Law offers a Spring Break program in Rome. An effort is made to organize this study trip every two years so that every student has the opportunity to go on the trip during his/her studies at the School of Canon Law. Students spend a week in Rome and usually stay just outside the Vatican. During the week day, the students visit the various different dicasteries-or various different departments that form the government of the universal Church, such as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith or the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts. Students are given the opportunity to ask questions and to experience themselves how canon law works in practice. The students have some afternoons to themselves to tour the city and the first weekend they arrive, they are free to either tour the city or take a day trip. Kurt Martens, J.C.D. is the current faculty advisor running the trip. Prof. Martens makes the arrangements for the meetings with the dicasteries and makes sure that students have the opportunity to say Mass at St. Peter's Basilica, St. John Lateran, St. Mary Major and St. Paul Outside the Walls, either in the morning or before dinner, as well as take part in a Papal Audience. In 2008, about 20 students and alumni took part in the trip. The School of Canon Law encourages students to ake advantage of this opportunity because the trip is usually sponsored through their dioceses. The School of Canon Law would like to continue this bi-annual trip tradition and incorporate it into its curriculum. For more information, contact Kurt Martens.

Center for Global Education (CGE)

The Center for Global Education's mission is to foster a sense of international community that builds on the Catholic University of America's strong intellectual and Catholic mission. CGE coordinates and facilitates university-wide global activity by sponsoring international exchanges of students and faculty and serving as a resource for departments and schools on campus that undertake international initiatives. The Center for Global Education is comprised of two units: The Education Abroad Office (CUAbroad) develops and administers international educational opportunities overseas for CUA and non-CUA students in coordination with CUA academic schools. International Student and Scholar Services (ISSS) is responsible for institutional compliance with immigration-related federal regulations and facilitates the legal entry and acculturation of international students, faculty and visiting scholars by providing immigration and cultural advising and programming and by serving as the University's official liaison to the federal government for immigration-related issues. For more information, visit the Faculty International Experience page.

Center for International Social Development (CISD)

The Center for International Social Development is an interdisciplinary program of research, teaching, service, and public education on the problems and prospects of international development. Drawing on 21 faculty from six of the schools of the university, the center aims to promote international development in the interests of peace and justice, with respect for the totality of the human person, through periodic public events and workshops, a graduate certificate program, and collaborative research. A certificate program will offer graduate students at the university and, eventually, professionals in the field to gain a broad understanding of development issues.

CUAbroad (CUA Education Abroad Office)

CUAbroad is the education abroad unit of the Center for Global Education. CUAbroad develops and administers a wide-array of international educational opportunities overseas for CUA and non-CUA students in coordination with the various CUA academic schools. Programs include short-term programs, semester/year long programs, international internships and exchange programs. Education abroad advising, a resource library and ISIC cards will also be made available through CUAbroad.

Council for Research in Values and Philosophy (CRVP)

The goal of the Council for Research in Values and Philosophy (CRVP) is to promote cooperative philosophical research that draws upon the cultural resources of the peoples of the world and applies them for human progress in these global times. A first objective is to build bridges of contact, scientific collaboration and critical discourse on issues relating to cultural retrieval and application. There is need for intercultural understanding between the scholars of diverse regions so that each can draw upon and contribute to the genius of all. The second objective of the seminars is to provide substantial access to the intellectual resources of the great libraries and think tanks on a global scale.

School of Engineering

Hong Kong Exchange: In coordination with CUAbroad, the School of Engineering offers an engineering student exchange program with the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU). Through the established student exchange program, qualified engineering students at CUA may study abroad at PolyU during the second semester of their junior year. The CUA engineering programs including biomedical, civil, electrical and mechanical engineering and computer science have developed modified curricula for their study abroad students to ensure that the participating students graduate on time. For more information, contact CUAbroad.

Two-plus-Two Program, CUA-Vietnam: The School of Engineering  has initiated two-plus-two programs with universities in Vietnam which allow engineering students from Vietnam come to study at CUA for their last two years in order to receive an undergraduate degree in engineering that is recognized in both countries. The School of Engineering is also looking to start up a two-plus-two program with a university in Bangkok, Thailand.

CUA Chapter of Engineers Without Borders: The Catholic chapter of Engineers Without Borders will be going to El Salvador for Spring Break 2009 to work on an engineering project that they have designed. For more information, please contact Kathryn Kazior at 29kazior@cua.edu.

International Students and Scholar Services (ISSS)

International Student and Scholar Services (ISSS) is a unit of the Center for Global Education. ISSS is responsible for institutional compliance with immigration-related federal regulations and facilitates the legal entry and acculturation of international students, faculty and visiting scholars by providing immigration and cultural advising and programming and by serving as the university's official liaison to the federal government for immigration-related issues.

Columbus School of Law 

Cracow Summer Program in International Business and Trade: The Columbus School of Law offers a summer program in International Business and Trade program at the Jagiellonian University (JU) in Krakow, Poland. Now in its 19th year, this summer program provides students with intensive training in the global aspects of modern trade, comparative perspectives of regulated industries and antitrust laws in the U.S. and the European Union, international business transactions, and other substantive areas of law. Classes are conducted in English at the Jagiellonian University. Founded in the 14th century, it is one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Europe. Unlike most summer abroad programs, a number of English-speaking law students from Polish universities will also participate. The Polish and American students will attend classes together, live together and participate in all co-curricular activities together. This cross-cultural aspect of the Krakow program is unique and has resulted in many lasting friendships and business contacts. CUA and JU also collaborate on providing an LL.M which partially takes place in Krakow. For more information, contact Dr. Leah Wortham, the faculty director of the CU-JU LL.M. program.

The Columbus School of Law has an agreement with the University of Lisbon which outlines the exchange of professors and researchers and the conduct of joint research projects and conferences.

The Columbus School of Law is also working on developing a summer program in Rome (estimated to begin summer 2010) which would focus on "International Property & Religious Art". For more information, please contact Dr. George Garvey.

Comparative & International Law Institute: The Comparative and International Law Institute (CILI) is a certificate program designed to give students the opportunity to pursue a concentration of courses in the public and private areas of international law. Students enrolled in the program are required to take at least five courses in international and comparative law, as well as complete an externship in an international organization, law firm or company. Public International Law, one of either Comparative Law, Comparative Constitutional Law, or Law of the European Union, and one of either Comparative and International Trade, International Business Transactions or International Economic Regulation are required of all participating students. The two elective courses may be selected from the entire international law curriculum, which includes, but is not limited to, Immigration and Nationality Law, International Organizations and Human Rights, International Regulation of Telecommunications, International Criminal Law, International and Comparative Taxation, and International Intellectual Property Law. For more information, please contact Dr. Stacy Brustin.

Metropolitan School for Professional Studies: Associate of Science Degree Program in Special Education Studies and International Health Studies for the Brothers of Charity

The Metropolitan School for Professional Studies offers these degree programs in collaboration with the School of Nursing and the Department of Education. The programs are in International Health Studies and Special Education Studies and are designed specifically for members of the Brothers of Charity; they are not opened to other students. The programs are offered at the International Novitiate Canon Triest in Ghent, Belgium.

Department of Modern Languages and Literature
School of Arts and Sciences

In coordination with CUAbroad, the Department of Modern Languages and Literature, School of Arts and Sciences, offers summer programs in various locations. Summer program offerings include Spanish language and civilization in Mexico and Italian art and literature in Italy. For more information, please contact CUAbroad.

Benjamin T. Rome School of Music

Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London Semester: In coordination with CUAbroad, musical theater students in their junior year at the Benjamin T. Rome School of Music have the opportunity to study theater at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. For more information, contact CUAbroad.

Summer Italy Music Program: Sharon Christman, Chair of the Vocal Division offers a summer Italy program which involves the Perugia Music Festival. For more information, contact Sharon Christman.

Terezin Summer Institute: The school of Music has also started a Terezin Summer Institute for Arts & Humanities in the Czech Republic as of May 2009 - for more info, contact Dean Sidlin, CUA School of Music.

School of Nursing

Nursing Exchange with Australian Catholic University
In coodination with the Center for Global Education, the School of Nursing has recently signed an exchange agreement with the Australian Catholic University to exchange nursing students. This exchange is effective in 2010. For more information, please contact Mary Patterson.

Summer Cultural Exchange Program
 

School of Social Service (NCSSS)

Program in the Philippines: CUA's National Catholic School of Social Service is opening a branch campus of sorts a long ways from Washington, D.C. … 8,700 miles away, to be exact, in the Philippines, on its large southern island of Mindanao. The Filipino social workers there are asking for CUA training to help them with a big project: rebuilding the homes, livelihoods and lives of a million people driven into refugee camps by a civil war between the national government and Muslim rebels fighting for political autonomy. For more information, contact Frederick Ahearn.

International Program Associates: NCSSS offers all NCSSS undergrads, M.S.W. and Ph.D. students who have completed field work the opportunity to participate in a 10 week summer program in either the Philippines, El Salvador or Ethiopia and Tanzania. For more information, contact Emmjolee Mendoza.

Department of Sociology - School of Arts & Sciences

During the Fall 2007, the Department of Sociology embarked on a major revision of its curriculum with the aim of highlighting existing international resources in the department and internationalizing its curriculum.  The motivation behind this initiative is the recognition that in the current globalization climate, academic fields need to prepare students for the challenges and opportunities offered by globalization.  In addition, the department recognizes that the conceptual study of sociology would be incomplete without the study of the domestic/international nexus that affect our societies today. With this purpose in mind, the department undertook four specific steps.  First, the sociology curriculum was re-organized along three specific tracks in the fields of public policy, crime, justice and pre-law, and global and comparative studies.  Second, several key courses were revised to include an international dimension.  These courses included not only substantive courses but even some core courses as well.  For instance, one of our required gateway courses- SOC 102 Social Problems- became Global Social Problems and Justice.  Thirdly, all majors will now be required to take at least one substantive elective with an international component.  Finally, the department has established several internships to support the new course of study. The department already supports several international academic programs in the university such as the International Social Development and the Latin American Studies programs. The department has three faculty members with international expertise; Dr. Hanson, Dr. Misztal and Dr. Pumar.