COE researcher receives 2018 Global Classrooms Initiative Award

UMD Assistant Clinical Professor Candace Moore is a recipient of the University of Maryland’s 2018 Global Classrooms Initiative Award, which will be used to develop a course that centers the value of local knowledge to widen the viewpoints of higher education student affairs practices in Ghana and the United States. Dr. Moore shares the award with colleagues, Dr. Michael Boakye-Yiadom, a research fellow of the Institute for Education Planning and Administration program at the University of Cape Coast, Ghana, and Dr. Jillian A. Martin, the assistant director for Strategy and Evaluation at the Gephardt Institute for Civic and Community Engagement at Washington University in St. Louis.

 The award, sponsored by the Office of International Affairs at UMD, provides financial support for UMD researchers and their international collaborators to develop innovative, project-based courses that use digital technologies to encourage collaboration between UMD students and students from UMD partner universities worldwide. In early 2019, the researchers will lead a new graduate level course titled “The College Student & Student Personnel Services in a Global Context.”

The course will focus on the demographics of college students in Ghana and the United States and will explore how students develop in college environments. Additionally, the students will work in cross-cultural teams to co-construct papers and presentations on decolonizing colonial roots in student affairs practices within an international higher education context. The researchers already host a winter study abroad program in Ghana, and the new course will provide another cross-cultural learning opportunity.

“I’m thrilled to partner with my colleagues Dr. Boakye-Yiadom and Dr. Martin on another culturally conscious initiative involving higher education in the Ghanaian context,” Dr. Moore says. “Our work helps aid students in having cross-cultural learning opportunities, and highlights the importance of decolonizing higher education through pedagogical approaches and student affairs practices. This grant will help us to meet our dual purpose and advance the scholarship on global higher education.” 

Dr. Moore is an assistant clinical professor in the in the Department of Counseling, Higher Education, and Special Education, where she also serves as the Director of the Center for Diversity and Inclusion in Higher Education. Her research interests include study of inclusive campus environments and student affairs practices in tertiary education in Ghana.