Conference-Related Course

Global Challenges: Winners and Losers of Offshore Outsourcing

The CGI led a team-taught mini course on offshore outsourcing which culminated in the conference in early March. The course brought seven faculty members and 140 students together to explore the implications of globalized production for developed and developing countries. Professors from computer science, economics, politics, and international relations prepared weekly common lectures and led separate discussion groups (see Syllabus).

As the final project for the course students had to create a webpage related to an issue raised in the course. Stellar examples include the following: Fair Trade - a different approach to global trade (Marcia C. Schenck), Behind the Go-CHINA Craze (Sixuan Chen), and Offshore - Outsourcing and the Africa Question (Oluwafunmito Phillips).

Participating faculty: Lisa Ballesteros (Computer Science), Jim Burke (LITS, Ph.D. Economics), Jens Christiansen (Economics and European Studies), Vinnie Ferraro (International Relations and Politics), Satya Gabriel (Economics), Penny Gill (Politics), Kavita Khory (International Relations and Politics), Eva Paus (Economics and International Relations).

The pilot course will serve as a model for future course-conference connections. The team-taught format fostered the cross-disciplinary analysis and discussion necessary to understand better the nature and ramifications of the global challenge of offshore outsourcing. And the joint intellectual engagement greatly significantly enhanced the educational benefits of the conference for students and faculty alike.