TWO ST. PHILIP’S COLLEGE FACULTY MEMBERS MAKE HISTORY AS TEXAS’ FIRST ALUMNI OF THE EDUCATION PARTNERSHIP FOR INTERNATIONALIZING CURRICULUM FELLOWS PROGRAM AT STANFORD UNIVERSITY

SAN ANTONIO ––-About 400 St. Philip’s College students and dozens of colleagues of SPC social and behavioral science faculty members Andrew Hill and Irene Young made history together in the multidisciplinary field of global and international studies this year.

Young and Hill have been giving back since August of last year as uniquely focused members of the Education Partnership for Internationalizing Curriculum (EPIC) Fellows Program for the 2018-19 academic year at Stanford University. 

SPC’s Young and Hill were both included when the selective, competitive 10-Fellow program with a global focus expanded beyond California for the first time in 2018. Now they are alumni of Stanford’s premiere program for bringing together and supporting faculty members committed to developing global and international studies.

And the benefit of globalism awareness is being shared more effectively with hundreds of students and dozens of colleagues in Texas. St. Philip’s College and San Jose City College were each represented with two Fellows in the 2018 cohort at Stanford. Mission College, De Anza College, College of Marin, Mission College, Grossmont College and Pasadena City College were each represented with one Fellow in the unique 2018 cohort. 

Hill and Young each have years of separate outstanding track records for inspiring colleagues while teaching philosophy and psychology in ways that inspire global thought to about 400 of the 13,000 students enrolled each year at 121-year-old St. Philip’s College. They began their fellowship year by processing their respective fellowship offers. The duo formally ended their timeline of weekly real-time phone meetings with Fellows at Stanford after giving separate presentations during the university’s 2019 EPIC Symposium held in May at Stanford. In between time and going forward as EPIC alumni, Hill and Young have been strategically enriching the abilities of both students and colleagues beyond the college through two diverse, synergistic focuses on globalization.

In a dual-purpose approach, Young and Hill studied and completed projects focused on what it means to internationalize and promote global competencies among both students and faculty at St. Philip’s College. They studied organizational behavior. They read strategically on international and cross-cultural education and how they can use both to help online and physical students. As they continued to network with members of the 2018 cohort of Fellows, Hill and Young were infusing their students in the classroom—and their faculty colleagues in professional development events in Texas—with sustainable new approaches to thinking globally.

In California, both of the efforts of the first Fellows in Texas were best-practice topics on the challenges and opportunities of developing the global studies culture with research-based innovative plans and strategies during the 2019 EPIC Symposium. Young and Hill were also members of two separate EPIC Fellow Project Panels held concurrently at the start of that symposium.

“Mr. Hill and I previously worked together worked on a St. Philip’s College and Alamo Colleges District study abroad program for Northern Ireland, and also in bringing Fulbright Scholars from that region to our college,” Hill said. “I have worked as a family life specialist for the Air Force… in Turkey, Belgium, Israel… it was an eye and mind opening experience. I wanted our students to have that same opportunity—but in a different way—and EPIC has become one of the ways,” Young explained.

Young’s previous academic experience also includes teaching students in the European and Mediterranean divisions of four-year colleges. In her current capacity within a department that annually builds the knowledge of 3,500 social sciences students, Young’s annual regular course load at the HBCU is anywhere from 170-200 students. She felt that sharing one of her impactful personal globalization experience stories with the Fellow selection team was one factor in her co-making history along with Hill.

“I met a family being forced off their land while I was serving in Turkey. One of the women in the family… she literally tried to give me a nine-month-old child of the family. From there, I knew she saw the world in a different way than I did,” said Young.

“Working within the Global Studies Division at Stanford… we were looking at how we can better incorporate global studies curriculums at community colleges that teach the majority of college students in this nation. In my recent social psychology course at my community college, my students were looking at how issues could be addressed from a global perspective. To make our world a better world. To think beyond the state level to the issues that are worldwide issues,” said Young. “I’ve also done study abroad as a faculty member, and I’m sharing that there are proposals available from EPIC to encourage community college students from Texas to study in Europe in extension with Stanford. The aspiration is for our students at St. Philip’s College to apply to visit the Stanford campus in Florence,” said Young.

“On our EPIC journey this year, we wanted to inspire our students to want to be in the room when a Fulbright Scholar arrives at St. Philip’s College, to visit that Stanford campus in Florence, to enroll in our classes… We’re helping our students to appreciate the perspectives and worldview of others, arousing their curiosity to make a difference when many of them have not had opportunities to travel and learn about other places,” said Young, adding, “World peace begins with learning about and understanding one another.”

To join the conversation on education through globalization at St. Philip’s College, contact Hill at ahill76@alamo.edu and Young at iyoung@alamo.edu. (Archival Images: Courtesy SPC and Courtesy Stanford-Michael Breger)