Join St. John’s International Virtual Exchange Program

St. John’s University seeks to expand virtual internationalization efforts to meet its mission: to provide a global education to all students, including those who may not be able to study abroad. 

The University’s virtual exchange program, Global Online Learning Exchange (GOLE), engages faculty and students in a cross-cultural learning experience with their counterparts in other universities around the world. Since the program’s formal launch in 2019, more than 1,000 students have participated, representing 54 courses and 30 current and emerging international partners on five continents. 

The exchange is conducted as part of a class and can take the form of a project, activity, or full-semester collaboration aimed at increasing both traditional course content and intercultural competency. Classroom-based and student-to-student interactions are conducted using technology that best suits the needs of the exchange, such as Canvas, Teams, various Google tools, and others.

GOLE projects embrace innovative, active-learning approaches that directly align with our mission by incorporating cross-cultural skill-building into classes that also engage global partners. They align with the “Diversity/Global Learning” area of the American Association of Colleges and Universities’ High-Impact Practices. Through GOLE, students on both sides of the exchange explore cultures and ways of thinking that are different from their own, while benefiting from unique ways to connect with each other and with course content.

We would now like to invite new faculty members to prepare for GOLE opportunities and ultimately lead virtual exchanges starting with the Spring 2025 semester. In addition, funding permitting, we are delighted to report that participating St. John’s faculty members will receive $1,000 in support for the first and third iterations of successful GOLE courses, or $2,000 in total.

If you are interested in being part of this initiative, you should join the asynchronous GOLE faculty development in February (2–26) by completing the registration form. Your international partner is also welcome to join the training, though it is only required for St. John’s faculty.

To learn more, or if you seek an international partner to collaborate in this initiative, we encourage you to reach out to Zoe Petropoulou, Ph.D., Senior Director for Global Engagement and Associate Professor of French, at [email protected].