Global Liberal Arts Alliance (GLAA) Opportunities

Kenyon is a member of the Global Liberal Arts Alliance (GLAA), an international partnership of colleges and universities where the liberal arts philosophy of education is foundational to the academic program. The GLAA’s mission is to promote partnership and collaboration between leadership, faculty, staff and students to develop a better understanding of the world and pressing issues of our time.

Below are announcements from the GLAA that outline opportunities for Kenyon faculty, staff and students. They will be updated as new announcements are made.

Faculty and Staff Opportunities, Feb. 2025

Develop a Globally Connected Course with GLAA Partner

Deadline: Rolling; closes when summer workshop is full

Global Course Connections (GCC) “connects” courses offered on Alliance campuses in different countries giving the courses an international dimension that enriches the course’s content. As documented in " The Wiley Handbook of Collaborative Online Learning and Global Engagement," co-edited by GLCA faculty who have taught in the program, students in these courses make gains in intercultural understanding. Indeed, universities around the world are developing these kinds of courses as a high impact, low-cost way to bring global perspectives into a course.

View additional program details, ways to participate, collaboration summer workshop, stipend and links for more information.

Interested faculty should provide a course description by completing the Course Description Google Form. These descriptions are posted to the GCC page where other faculty can search for a potential match. Note: You have to post a course description to be allowed to search the database for other potential course connection (even connection possibilities that do not coincide with your posted course connection).

You are encouraged to visit the course matching pages periodically to look through the other courses listed. If you see a possible match, the first step is to contact the faculty member and exchange syllabi to see where the courses might fruitfully connect.

Student Opportunities, Feb. 2025

Call for Applications for the 2025 Athens Democracy Forum

For rising seniors | Deadline: 5 p.m. Friday, March 21

Are you interested in issues related to global democracy? Would you like an opportunity to meet other like-minded scholars who are also interested in sharing their ideas on how to bring about positive change through democratic measures?

The Global Liberal Arts Alliance (GLAA), of which Kenyon is a member, will again join the with Deree-The American College of Greece for the prestigious Athens Democracy Forum. The forum is organized by the Democracy and Culture Foundation.

The 2025 forum will explore “new visions for hard realities” in the aftermath of the “year of elections” that produced mixed results for democracy. Despite the disparate outcomes, the people expressed two themes: disaffection and a hunger for change. The 2025 forum will take stock of these forces and how to harness their power. Participants will analyze the realities that must be reckoned with — social upheaval, economic insecurity, concurrent wars, the onslaught of tech advancements, the chaos of the climate crisis — as well as the political opportunists who might take advantage of them.

The forum will host important speakers from around the world and students will take part in interactive workshops. This is an opportunity for a student to attend and make meaningful contributions to the Forum and return to our campus with a ready plan of action to address a challenge identified there. This aligns with the program goals of:

  1. preparing youth to be more meaningfully involved in decision making on issues that will affect their lives and pushing students to act now.
  2. giving youth a global perspective by working with peers from other parts of the world and talking with business, community, government and NGO leaders from around the world.

This is an opportunity for a student to attend and make meaningful contributions to the Forum and return to our campus with a ready plan of action to address a challenge identified there.

If selected to attend the forum, the student will receive an all-expense paid trip to Athens, Greece for the approximate dates of Oct. 1-3, 2025.  (The actual dates will be defined before summer.) There will also be required summer homework and interactions (via email, video, etc.) to prepare for the forum.

If you are interested and a rising senior, see the linked application document and program description.  The deadline for submission of materials (as word documents) is 5 p.m. Friday, March 21. Send materials to hemkins@kenyon.edu.

Call for Applications 2025 Leadership in Action Program

Deadline: 5 p.m. Friday, March 21, 2025

The GLAA’s  “Leadership in Action” program is offered with the belief that all students have the capacity to lead. The GLAA embraces the notion of non-positional leadership, a small ‘l’ leader who can engage in leadership roles in different places and times within a group, organization, or community. Students will develop confidence and leadership skills to take on a variety of leadership roles in initiatives that address social issues about which they are passionate and be prepared to continue their leadership development as they pursue additional opportunities on campus and in their communities. The competencies needed to develop leadership capacity and the contexts within which this happens are strongly aligned with the practices and learning outcomes of a liberal arts education, making our campuses a fertile and supportive space for young leaders to develop.

Through readings, conversations with peers from around the world, and guided reflection on personal experiences, students will write a personal philosophy of leadership and develop themselves within that framework to be prepared to take on a variety of leadership roles. In the process, students will develop transferable skills including self-understanding and identifying personal values, showing empathy, being empowering, goal setting, teamwork, being inclusive, communicating, listening and facilitation, conflict resolution, behaving ethically, and leading with confidence.

 Program Dates:
The “Leadership in Action” program is composed of three modules running from May 2025 to April 2026, including an in-person workshop at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco* in July 2025.
*Through a generous grant from the Endeavor Foundation, the cost to attend the in-person seminar in Morocco will be covered, including visa application, airfare, lodging, meals, ground transportation and excursions. Students will be responsible for incidentals duringtravel and while in Morocco. 

Program Learning Outcomes:
The seminar adopts the Knowing-Being-Doing framework for leadership development. Through the seminar, students will:

  1. Articulate a personal philosophy of leadership and its application to working within a community to address problems. [Knowing]
  2. Engage in personal reflection to understand themselves better, identify confidently as a leader, and navigate their own identities in relationship to leadership. [Being]
  3. Apply leadership skills in a campus/community initiative on an issue of importance to them that creates positive change. [Doing]

Students completing the full-year seminar will receive a letter from the Global Liberal Arts Alliance certifying their participation in and contributions to the seminar.

Eligibility:
Students enrolled full-time at Kenyon ( a member of the GLAA) for the 2025-26 academic year. Applicants must have an interest in expanding their leadership skills and be willing to work with students from diverse backgrounds, i.e. from the other GLAA schools during the program events.

How to Apply:
Fill out the application form, which, among other things, will ask you to describe a leadership initiative/project you would like to carry out in the 2025-2026 academic year.  Students participating in the Alliance Leadership in Action Seminar are expected to apply what they learn to their proposed work.

Submission Date:
The deadline for submission of materials (as word documents) is 5 p.m. Friday, March 21. Send materials (application, resume, unofficial transcript) to hemkins@kenyon.edu.