Hiring WPI's global dean marks milestone in international projects program

Mimi Sheller, incoming dean of The Global School at Worcester Polytechnic Institute

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By Susan Shalhoub

With Mimi Sheller of Philadelphia’s Drexel University just named incoming dean, The Global School at Worcester Polytechnic Institute has launched as a formalizing and furthering of something the university has done all along: global projects.

Announced in February 2020, The Global School is intended to serve as a platform for research programs, global partnerships and tackling global issues, like climate change. The school is projected to provide faculty and students with opportunities to collaborate with students, academics, governments, non-governmental organizations, and local communities.

The brainchild of WPI President Laurie Leshin, the school is an umbrella to existing units such as the Department of Integrative and Global Studies and the Global Experience office – which helps students ready for off-campus travel – as well as the Global Lab.

WPI stands alone in this particular brand of global learning, said Dawn Michele Whitehead, vice president of the Office of Global Citizenship for Campus, Community, and Careers at the Association of American Colleges and Universities.

“It’s the project-based learning piece of the global learning that is embedded, that is a real example for this kind of problem solving,” for other higher-education institutions, she said. “It gives WPI this opportunity to differentiate itself and gives other institutions something to aspire to.”

Dawn Michele Whitehead, VP of the Office of Global Citizenship at the Association of American Colleges & Universities

The arrival of Sheller into the role of The Global School’s first dean marks a milestone in its short history.

Set to arrive on campus in July, Sheller brings a unique asset to The Global School: Her expertise in mobilities – a social science examining the movement of people and things and the implications they bring. At Drexel, she founded and served as director of its Center for Mobilities Research and Policy, a hub for examining global issues in that field.

She said the field of mobilities and The Global School mesh well, which is what drew her to the position at WPI.

“Mobilities is full of social justice questions on the politics of movement, such as who and what can move,” she said, “or the constraints on mobility systems around the world. When I looked at The Global School, I was excited to do mobility research at a setting like WPI, with its reputation for project-based learning and problem-solving through interdisciplinary teamwork.”

Adding empathy to STEM

A Philadelphia native, Sheller has been known to work in different disciplines herself.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in history and literature from Harvard and Radcliffe colleges in Cambridge; a master’s in sociology and historical studies; and a Ph.D. in sociology from the New School for Social Research in New York City. Among her many academic positions was visiting associate professor of sociology at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania and founding co-director of the Centre for Mobilities Research at Lancaster University in the United Kingdom.

Sheller calls The Global School model – introducing empathy to STEM disciplines and solving the problems of the world community – the future of higher education.

“WPI built the framework for doing it,” said Sheller. “It’s a model. It is a unique school.”

WPI’s Department of Integrative and Global Studies is all about retooling the city of Worcester’s heritage of innovation and industry, she said.

“Now, we take that heritage and pivot it toward the outside world,” Sheller said.

Project requirements

For the launch of a new school, the timing may have appeared unfortunate on the surface, as COVID reached epidemic levels in the U.S. just weeks later. To maintain safe conditions on campus, commemorative events to mark the occasion had to be held virtually throughout the coming months, with speakers on various topics of global importance presented from locations around the world.

But the school’s arrival – coinciding with a pandemic – ultimately brought a sense of deeper meaning, said WPI Provost Winston Soboyejo.

Winston Soboyejo, provost of Worcester Polytechnic Institute

“It really addressed its greater sense of purpose,” Soboyejo said. “It helped identify the global great challenges, such as, ‘How do we bring teams together on matters like this, matters such as global public safety?’ It has shown that the school is more important than ever.”

For years, WPI has had its Great Problems Seminar in place for first-year students, where they embark upon projects of a global nature while acquiring marketable skills such as time management and critical thinking.

The university’s interactive qualifying project requirement, meanwhile, allows students to work with team members outside their majors involving issues such as energy, environment, education or technology. Groups tackle societal problems for nine credit hours in global project centers from their pick of more than 50 international sites including in Russia, Ghana, India and Panama, or closer to home if they prefer, such as a partner project center in California, or on Nantucket.

Soboyejo said The Global School – the idea of President Laurie Leshin – is a platform for international projects for all students and faculty. The school, designed to work with WPI’s other schools, with two master’s degree programs so far, adds global impact to that formula.

“Now, we are focused on graduate projects,” he said. “But that doesn’t necessarily inform policy. The Global School will help us do that. The idea is to build connections to inform policy at a higher level and drive information, drive innovation at this higher level with our global partners.”