Geography is a diverse academic discipline united by a focus on global change and local impacts on humans and the environment. So it’s no surprise that the College of Social Sciences’ innovative Geography and Environment department has offered a class for the past two years in which half of the students are based in another country, namely Japan.
When the Fall 2021 online Global and Multicultural Perspectives foundation class, GEO 151 “Geography and Contemporary Society,” convenes via Zoom, half of the 54 students are enrolled at Meiji Gakuin University in Tokyo. With its mix of Japan-based and UH Mānoa-based students, the entire class learns about human geography by exploring the historical global patterns and processes that come to be known as globalization.
“Our faculty have expertise in environmental geography, human geography and geospatial information science, focusing on Asia and the Pacific,” said Professor Reece Jones, Geography and Environment chair. “Our department is thrilled to offer these joint classes with Japanese university students, because they allow our UH Mānoa students to have cross-cultural interactions without having to travel abroad. Meanwhile, the Japan-based students are able to practice their English and make intercultural connections. We hope the experience encourages the Japanese students to consider UH for a graduate degree in the future.”
Teaching the class this semester is Borjana Lubura-Winchester, a PhD candidate in the department who studies migration along the Western Balkan route in Europe. She is the ideal instructor to lead this effort, said Jones, “thanks to her experience in teaching the course dozens of times and consistently receiving excellent student evaluations.”
In Spring 2022, the department will offer another virtual class in GEO 335, “Politics, Nations and States,” with half of the class enrolled at Osaka City University and the other half at UH Mānoa. It will be taught by PhD student Tatsuki Kohatsu, who is interested in geopolitics and security, with his research focusing on how militarism and tourism affect islands such as Okinawa.
“What I hope the students will gain from the class are different perspectives, and learning to critically think about how geography matters in discussing contemporary issues,” said Kohatsu. “It will provide an opportunity for the Osaka City University and UH students to exchange their views and ideas through collaborative learning.”
Added Jones, “That will be the first time for a joint class with Osaka City University students. It is part of a Japanese government initiative called COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning), which links the classrooms of two or more higher education institutes, each located in a different country or cultural setting. We anticipate continuing these partnerships with Japan-based universities for many years to come.”
Geography and Environment BA, MA and PhD students research topics such as agriculture and food, climate change, environmental conservation, geopolitics, geospatial sciences and big data analytics, and tourism – leading to careers in academia, government service and NGOs, and in the private sector. It is the lead department for the interdisciplinary online degree in Social Sciences of Oceans and the Graduate Ocean Policy Certificate. There are also a popular undergraduate certificate in Geospatial Information Science and a five-year combined (BAM) Bachelor’s and Master’s Pathway.
