德保爾大學

Our undergraduate program is designed to equip students with the interdisciplinary approach, critical thinking skills and international perspectives necessary to address real world challenges. Students can expect to be challenged by a rigorous interdisciplinary curriculum founded in critical social theory and international political economy. Undergraduate students are required to take seven core classes that, taken together, explore and problematize notions of culture, migration, conflict, governance, popular movements, and identities and boundaries. In the process, students acquire critical reading, writing, research, and problem-solving skills tailored to contemporary local, regional, and international challenges.

The BA program is unique for its interdisciplinary approach to international studies and commitment to placing the themes of power and inequality at the heart of academic inquiry. Unlike conventional programs that focus on international security and economy, our program addresses the economic in conjunction with the political and social. Moreover, undergraduates are encouraged to develop second-language proficiency through two years of intensive language study, and we encourage study abroad in a country where the second language is spoken. Students learn to think in more international and interdisciplinary contexts, to value social and cultural complexity, and to question conventional wisdom. As a result, our students often engage in activism and social justice work in Chicago, nationally, and internationally.

Learning Outcomes

?Students will be able to:

Produce written and/or oral work that exhibits mastery of the content areas found in the core courses of the major: nationalism, international relations, social movements, cultural analysis, international political economy, and critical geography.

Write scholarly essays presented in a format consistent with The Chicago Manual of Style:

• Using reliable primary and/or scholarly sources.
• Drawing valid inferences from the evidence presented.
• Making unified arguments, logically presented, that is coherent and cohesive.

Make arguments, whether in a written or oral context, that are logically valid and based on reliable evidence, critique arguments that are logically invalid or lack adequate evidence, and use these to propose well-considered real-world courses of action.

Conduct research or communicate in professional contexts using at least one language other than English.

Analyze the mathematical basis of moderately technical arguments in the field of international political economy.

Analyze how historical pathways inflect present meanings and both constrain and enable what can be done in the present and the future.