Center for Global Engagement Opportunities

On-Campus Engagement:

• Courses throughout the curriculum that integrate global perspectives

• Co-curricular activities with global engagement components

• Global faculty members who come to MVNU from around the world to teach

• Purposeful connection with Nazarene Global Missions

Off-Campus Engagement:

• On-location courses immersed in different cultures

• Semester-long courses with 2-week spring break travel components

• Summer or semester-long study away opportunities, nationally or internationally

• Orientation and debriefing resources for on-location courses, study away, and ser vice-learning trips

Collaboratory Engagement:

• Collaboratory courses open to students, alumni, faculty, staff, and partners

• Global practitioners help MVNU students engage current needs and challenges

• Service and scholarship integration through project-based learning

• Students meaningfully connect with mentors and future employers

Off-Campus engagement includes serving in the local central Ohio community, participating in semester exchanges with partnering institutions, and studying away across the U.S. and around the world. Students can take on-location courses for a semester, a spring break, a summer, or even a year immersed in a different culture. The Center equips all students — as well as alumni, faculty, and staff who want to join us for short-term opportunities — with necessary orientation and debriefing to facilitate deeper and more meaningful learning experiences.

On-Campus engagement includes courseembedded service learning, co-curricular opportunities, intercultural events, global speakers, and real-life, project-based learning experiences, right here on campus. Students, practitioners, missionaries, and faculty will all have access to shared resources and year-round campus events featuring global practitioners and faculty who engage, teach, speak, and share wisdom with the campus community.

Collaboratory engagement is designed for anyone interested in offering or participating in hands-on, project-based learning, engaging problems, and addressing needs through partnering with and learning from global practitioners. This worldwide community is committed to providing global engagement opportunities, hands-on training, and networking opportunities for students and graduates, now and into the future. Collaboratory courses are available to anyone—and practitioners can come to the Collaboratory with short- and long-term project-based learning opportunities, accessing the expertise of faculty and student engagement to tackle current needs.

For students, this three-fold engagement approach helps them become better citizens of the world while producing portfolio-worthy experiences and meaningful connections with career mentors and even employers. For practitioners, it means access to a growing community of MVNU collaborators who are ready to learn and serve.

Current and future projects, immediate impact

In collaboration with global practitioners and academic programs, the Center for Global Engagement is empowering students to:

• Create an unmanned aircraft used for crop surveillance in Guatemala to increase food security

• Conduct an assessment of community health needs in Guyana to inform health-oriented services and programming in rural areas

• Develop a protocol to assess the feasibility of a tilapia fish farm in Mozambique to serve as an economic empowerment initiative for the Milange District Training Center

Bridging the

Gap

Fostering a global perspective doesn’t just happen—it’s something we cultivate together.

Gifts of time and talent from MVNU constituencies to the Center for Global Engagement are bridging the gap between knowledge and experience. Alumni, friends, and Collaboratory partners are not only proving faithful to share their vocational knowledge and insight with students, but mentor them meaningfully for a powerfully practical global engagement experience.

Gifts of treasure are bridging the gap between what tuition and student fundraising efforts can match so students can make a real difference in the world — now and after graduation. The University is eager to find partners to help us raise $1 million to endow the Center and honor E. LeBron and Anne Fairbanks, MVNU’s fifth president and first lady, who were integral in fostering MVNU’s global impact and setting the example of being global citizens.

Give to the Center for Global Engagement

Mobilize our students to engage current needs and challenges and prepare for civic life and service— while making an immediate impact.

The endowment will help provide project grants, travel stipends, global events, student scholarships, a Global Learning Academy, and more.

The Fairbankses were integral in fostering MVNU‘s global impact and setting the example of being global citizens. In Dr. Fairbanks’ final address to faculty entitled One Final Recommendation in August of 2006, he said, “I urge you to require a cross-cultural component to what we expect of every student who graduates from MVNU. This component needs to be added across the curriculum to emphasize the distinctiveness that MVNU graduates experience face-to-face immersion within a culture other than their own. It reflects our intentionality to prepare students to become global Christians.”

Some initial lead gifts have already been pledged. University leadership is seeking additional partners to expand the possibilities offered through the Center. There are multiple opportunities to honor or remember a family member, former pastor, or favorite missionary by naming one of the various programs of the Center. If you’d like to partner as a lead or supporting donor, please contact our Vice President of University Relations, James Smith at james.smith@mvnu.edu, or join us at this summer’s MVNU General Assembly Alumni Luncheon for the public launch of the Center for Global Engagement.

Gifts to the Center create more opportunities for students who might not otherwise be able to participate in global engagement learning experiences. What’s more, these funds will empower our faculty and partners to identify new places for MVNU students to learn and serve locally, nationally, and globally, cultivating the Christ-centered leaders we all want to see in the world.

Are you interested in participating in a trip or project, have ideas for collaborations or want to discuss giving opportunities?