Whitworth 2021

Goal 3: Prepare Whitworth students to be global citizens

Our students live in an increasingly interdependent world. They must be able to cross international boundaries and navigate politics, cultures, economics, religions and languages with skill and understanding if they are to serve and lead in an ever-evolving global community. Whitworth will equip its students with the knowledge, skills and insight they need to thrive as global citizens.

Objectives:

Expand opportunities for students to experience and explore cultures throughout the world, leading to an increase in the percentage of undergraduates who study abroad from 43 percent to 70 percent.

Increase opportunities on the Whitworth campus for students, faculty and staff to gain international perspectives by interacting with and learning from people from all corners of the world.

Establish ongoing assessment of study-abroad programs to ensure consistent quality and clear connections to Whitworth's educational goals.

Costa Rica zipline

Spotlight: Lara Lichten, '10

CRC Dispatch: May 2011
By Lara Lichten, '10, volunteer student coordinator at the Whitworth Costa Rica Center

I have loved serving at the Cost Rica Center – what a joy to be a part of this community! The center provides Whitworth students the unique opportunity to take their basic course requirements within the context of another culture. Our spring semester classes ranged from Conservationism and Human Rights to Latin American Women Writers and Core 350, with discussion groups in Spanish and English.

This spring, students participated in internships with local businesses and home-stays with families, and they spent a week in Nicaragua, studying history, economics, politics and poverty. Students also visited a self-sustaining farm on the Caribbean coast, studied mangroves on the Pacific Coast, and stayed with host families in a small fishing community.

Whitworth students' intercultural experiences in Costa Rica encourage them to seek an education of mind and heart, to broaden their worldview perspectives, to learn to dig deeper and ask hard questions, and to find their own ways to identify and fulfill others' needs.

Whitworth's Costa Rica Center offers an innovative curriculum for semester-long and Jan Term study programs open to all majors. The center occupies a 27-acre property at the edge of a rainforest and is less than an hour's bus ride from Costa Rica's bustling capital of San Jose.