A new school at ASU will tackle themes as varied as immigration, health and disease and the environment, its director said.
The School of Global Studies in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences officially launches today.
Director David Jacobson said the new school would take an interdisciplinary approach.
"It's a conscious effort to adapt to today's world," he added.
ASU President Michael Crow and China's Sichuan University President Xie Heping will speak at the launch ceremony today at 11 a.m. at Coor Hall.
A series of events Thursday also marked the occasion, including a lecture by former U.S. ambassador Dennis Ross.
The school's undergraduate program began last fall. It will offer a master's program starting in fall 2007 and a Ph.D. in global studies starting in fall 2008.
Jacobson said the idea was to give students academic grounding along with hands-on practical training through internships abroad.
"If a student's concentration track is health and diseases, he or she can work in a health clinic on AIDS in South Africa," Jacobson said.
The school has a 13-member faculty, 10 of whom were hired over the past year and a half, Jacobson said. He said the school was able to attract leading professors as it is being built from the ground up. The interdisciplinary approach drew them in, he added.
Professor Christopher Duncan agreed. He recently moved to Tempe after living in Indonesia and Vietnam over the past five years to join the School of Global Studies and the Religious Studies Department.
"I am an anthropologist, but I also work in areas like communal violence and minority rights," Duncan said.
He said Global Studies is a good program because Americans tend to think of only America and see it through the lens of the American media.
"It's good for students to have their moorings dislodged," Duncan said.
David Young, ASU vice president and CLAS dean, said it took about two years to put things together for the school.
ASU already has a public affairs program, but it lacked an international affairs-type program, he said.
Young said he hoped students would raise questions about issues facing the world in the class.
Jacobson said students graduating with a Global Studies degree could go on to work for non-profit organizations or with the State Department.
Such opportunities attracted global studies freshman Shawn Young, who said he wants to work for the State Department.
"I can take courses in politics and history with an international relations bent," he said.
Jonathan C. Sanchez, also a freshman, said he chose global studies because he wants to go into military intelligence.
"This degree seemed like a perfect fit," he said.
There are about 60 global studies majors in the school. Young said he estimated that in five years between 300 and 500 students would major in global studies.
But the rapid pace of the school's growth will be a challenge, said Jacobson.
"We are moving very fast, and we want to do it well," he said.
Reach the reporter at sonu.munshi@asu.edu.
