ICGC Program Objectives

The Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change (ICGC) has the following objectives:

• To foster an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural community of faculty and students committed to studying global change.
• To provide intellectual and financial support for graduate and professional school students focusing on the contemporary developing world.
• To provide enabling grants to graduate and professional-school students at the University of Minnesota for internships and predissertation fieldwork in the developing world as part of their training programs.
• To organize interdisciplinary faculty-student seminars and workshop series on major theoretical, comparative and methodological issues related to the developing world and offer ICGC scholars a graduate minor field in Development Studies and Social Change.
• To present formal public lectures and informal discussion series by scholars, policy makers and activists/advocates.
• To collaborate with the Dillard University, Tougaloo College and the University of Minnesota Morris in offering a multi-year Honors Program in International Studies for U.S. undergraduate students of color and others who have demonstrated a commitment to increasing diversity in global scholarship headed for graduate school.

Underwriters

The Interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Global Change at the University of Minnesota is underwritten by generous grants from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, with aditional support for a number of Compton International Fellows from the Compton Foundation and ICGC-Fulbright Scholars from the Foreign Fulbrights Program of the United States Information Service. External grants are matched by support from units within the University, including the Office of the Senior Vice President for System Academic Administration; Office of the Vice President for Research; Office of the Vice President and Vice Provost for Equity and Diversity; the Graduate School; Colleges of Liberal Arts, Biological Sciences, Food, Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences; School of Public Health; College of Education and Human Developement; and Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs.