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COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS AND SCIENCES

GLOBAL LEARNING

Students from the social justice documentary program.
Students from the social justice documentary program.

With a rich, interdisciplinary curriculum and expert, international faculty, the College prepares students—both in the classroom and through study abroad—to become global citizens.

Today’s increasingly global society requires citizens who can analyze intersectional identities, overlapping diasporas and the historical structures at play. 

  • The College offers majors and minors that equip students for international careers that contribute to the common good. Our Global Interdisciplinary Studies program offers seven area studies specializations, a Peace and Justice major and a Gender and Women's Studies major.
  • Courses across every discipline—from history and literature, to social justice and social movements, to global ecology and ecosystems—explore international impacts.
  • In addition to our unique Vatican Internship program, through the Communication department or the Computing Sciences department, we work with students to find and secure internships all over the world.
  • Our faculty hail from nations all over the world including Argentina, Ghana, Israel, Japan, Spain and more.

Study Abroad

The College offers several study abroad programs designed to prepare students for an ever-changing global workplace and allow them to connect with their disciplines and majors in exciting new ways. Through our partnerships with some of the world’s most respected universities, students will be able to earn college credit toward several majors and minors, and in some cases certificates in specific areas of study.

Some of these programs are not open this year due to COVID-19 travel restrictions.

Semester programs

Summer programs

Learn more about study abroad opportunities through the Office of Education Aboard.

EXPLORE STUDY ABROAD BY MAJOR

  

Embedded Travel

The College is committed to providing our students with exceptional international learning opportunities—going beyond the traditional semester study-abroad model. The College offers rich, relevant and participatory courses with embedded travel components. Recent and ongoing experiences include:

Traveling abroad enables student-filmmakers in the Social Documentary course with Hezekiah Lewis, MFA, to do authentic storytelling that draws attention to important issues and drives social change. A trip to Ghana inspired Sankofa, a documentary about mental slavery and its negative systemic impact on black males across the globe, which won the gold medal in the Documentary/Domestic Film Schools Category in the 2019 Student Academy Awards.

Learn more about the program.

This course, led by Robert Curry, PhD, provides an introduction to environmental biology through study of the natural history of organisms and ecosystems of Maritime Canada. Lectures, readings and writing assignments are augmented by a multi-day trip to Nova Scotia with a focus on the exploration of diverse terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, identification of organisms and independent projects.

Writing Through Conflict explores the important role of creative writing in confronting, protesting and engaging with socio-political conflicts. As part of this course, students traveled to Belfast, Ireland to participate in an intensive creative writing conference at Queen's University, engaged in daily writing workshops with Irish authors, took literary tours in Belfast, attended readings and creative writing symposiums, and revised and shared their work in a student showcase.

  

International Student Experience

The College cultivates an environment that welcomes and learns from international faculty and students. CLAS attracts undergraduate and graduate students from 50 countries around the world, and our international student and faculty population grows each year. International students will find a supportive and rich environment at Villanova.

  

STORIES OF DISCOVERY

ARCHAEOLOGY IN EGYPT

Kelly-Anne Diamond, PhD, History, is a trained Egyptian archaeologist. She is co-director of the newly established Memphis-Kom el-Fakhry Archaeological Project which seeks to resurrect the “lost” city of Memphis, the first capital of a unified Egypt and one of the ancient world’s most recognizable cities. Through her research, Dr. Diamond is excited to “provide first-hand information about what has actually been found at the archaeological site and provide a detailed overview of past projects that have attempted to reveal the site history.”

GAINING GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE

"Throughout my time as a Villanova CLAS student, I realized that we can learn so much from not only other people, but other places. This insight sparked my decision to apply for a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship in the Czech Republic," says Hannah Pontari '23 CLAS. A Political Science major with a minor in Public Service and Administration, Hannah interned at the Nationalities Service Center in 2021 in the English as a Second Language program, providing learning support to refugees who recently resettled in the US.

RESEARCH IN REYKJAVIK

There’s nothing like the great outdoors—and Tommy Linehan CLAS ’24, an Environmental Studies major on the Sustainability track—is committed to keeping our earth healthy and enjoyable for humans and wildlife alike. During a summer internship, Tommy served as program associate for the North Atlantic Salmon Fund (NASF) in Reykjavik, Iceland. “I worked to create documents for the general public to highlight the negative effects of aquaculture and promote policy change,” he explains. Tommy also helped organize the Salmon Summit in Reykjavik.

"WAR, WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?"

Grace Lundell ’23 CLAS earned a double major in Political Science and French and Francophone Studies. During her junior year, Grace studied abroad in France, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine inspired her to research wars affect the region. Her final thesis paper, "War, What is it Good For? The Effect of Military Conflicts on Trust in the EU," explores the premise that wars involving EU states or occurring within Europe can temporarily strengthen trust in the EU.