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  • Academia Meets Policy: Partnering with Think Tanks to Improve Student Experiences

    Apr 23, 2025 11:00 am18 views

    This past February, I had the privilege and pleasure of being invited to Spain to attend the School For Thinktankers 2025, sponsored by the organization On Think Tanks (OTT) at Fundació Bofill in Barcelona. The weeklong training seminar started with an inspiring welcome session, setting the stage for an exciting week of learning, collaboration, and growth. As the Center for Global Studies (CGS) is launching a new Master of Science in Global Studies (MSGS) with 3 tracks including Global Governance, Global Security, and Gender and Public Policy, partnering with think tanks to collaborate, create student internships, and develop opportunities for students to present work and publish is a strategic focus of the center. Through the new master’s degree, CGS can offer avenues for networking, increased exposure to, and engagement with think tanks across the world.

  • Arts and Education without Borders: The 9th Annual Globalizing the Community College Curricula Conference 2025

    Feb 12, 2025 2:45 pm21 views

    The 9th Annual Globalizing the Community College Curricula Conference 2025: Arts and Education without Borders conference was an immensely successful conference that will positively impact the Global Studies Program at Heartland Community College (HCC) in Normal, Illinois. The conference featured “innovative strategies and best practices for integrating global perspectives into community college curricula through the arts” and followed through with a diverse speaker lineup that provided multiple subject examples ranging from philosophy, art, composition, anthropology, and political science.  

  • CGS Congratulates its Affiliates and Recipients of LAS Dean’s Awards and Faculty Honors

    Apr 14, 2023 4:45 pm32 views

  • CGS Congratulates its Faculty Recipients of the College of LAS Teaching and Advising Awards

    Feb 19, 2024 9:45 am17 views

  • CGS Faculty Affiliates Recognized in LAS Faculty Awards Announcement

    Apr 3, 2025 4:00 pm14 views

    We are proud to celebrate the achievements of two Center for Global Studies (CGS) faculty affiliates who have recently been honored through the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences (LAS) faculty awards and announcements.

  • Congratulations to “The Chancellor’s Call to Action Research Projects for 2024-25” Awards Recipients

    Mar 1, 2024 2:45 pm35 views

    The Center for Global Studies (CGS) congratulates CGS Faculty Affiliates Faranak Miraftab, Ken Salo, Scott Althaus, Anita Chan, Yannick Kluch, Teresa Ann Barnes, James Kilgore, Ian Brooks and former CGS Graduate Assistant Atyeh Ashtari for receiving the 2024-2025 Chancellor Jones Call to Action Research Program awards. The Chancellor’s Call to Action to Address Racism & Social Justice Research Program 2024-2025 awarded 12 research programs focused on systemic racial inequalities and injustice in our communities and higher education. 

  • Global Studies Consortium at Aarhus University in Denmark, September 21-23, 2023

    Oct 24, 2023 11:15 am32 views

    From September 21 - 23, 2023, the Center for Global Studies participated in several days of conversation and discussion with fellow members of the Global Studies Consortium at Aarhus University in Denmark. 

  • Nathan Sonnenschein

    Global Studies, Librarianship, and the Job Market

    Mar 31, 2022 3:00 pm69 views

    Nathan Sonnenschein, a former graduate assistant at the Center for Global Studies, discusses how his experiences at CGS prepared him for the job market.

  • Donna Tonini, Eman Saadah and Raquel Castro Goebel posing in front of the desert backdrop

    Highlighting Teaching Excellence at the Faculty Retreat

    Jun 21, 2022 10:45 am65 views

    Each year UIUC holds a faculty retreat to promote teaching excellence, and awards faculty retreat grants that enable recipients to design and implement an instructional enhancement that has a high probability of improving education at Illinois. The theme of the 2022 annual faculty retreat was “Breaking Down the Garden Walls: A Promise of Access to Success.” The retreat highlighted the practices and approaches implemented by faculty across campus as they work towards a campus culture that fosters student success.  At the retreat, CGS Associate Director Donna Tonini caught up with CGS Affiliates Professor Eman Saadah, Director of the Less Commonly Taught Languages Program and Director and Language Coordinator of Arabic, and Professor Raquel Castro Goebel, the Portuguese Language Program Director, and an instructor in the Department of Spanish & Portuguese.

  • Illini Engaged: Envisioning Education at CIES 2025

    May 16, 2025 7:15 pm6 views

    The Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) met in Chicago, Illinois, for its 69th annual conference. Held at the historic Palmer Hotel, the conference brought together educators and practitioners who focus on educational issues worldwide to explore the theme of Envisioning Education in a Digital Society. The conference had strong representation from the College of Education at Illinois, broaching topics such as the relationship between education and cultural processes, democratization, globalization, economic development, and political conflict. This blog post highlights a few key aspects of the excellent scholarship presented by Illinois students, staff, faculty, and affiliates.

  • Impressive Illinois presence at the CIES Conference in Washington D.C. in February

    Mar 22, 2023 9:30 am125 views

    At the CIES Conference in Washington D.C. in February.


  • CGS Associate Director Donna Tonini and conference participants at conference dinner at Morskie Oko in Rynek Główny, Kraków, Poland

    Investigating Intersections of the Local and Global: Exploring Migration Trends in Kraków, Poland

    Aug 19, 2024 4:30 pm55 views

  • Returning to French Archives Amid the Pandemic

    Oct 27, 2021 1:15 pm202 views

    International travel to France and French archives in year two of the pandemic.

  • Students Reimagine the Future in Global Sustainability Competition

    Dec 9, 2024 4:30 pm54 views

    On December 7, 2024, 14 teams from across the globe gathered via Zoom for the 4th annual Reimagine Our Future sustainability competition award ceremony. The competition brought together 249 students from 11 institutions in the USA, UK, Ukraine, South Africa, China, Austria, Colombia, and Italy, who spent eight weeks crafting innovative solutions for the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals and showcasing contributions of diverse disciplines such as engineering, health sciences, agriculture, and architecture to sustainability through factsheets.