This year’s Virtual Global Learning Fellows (VGLF) hosted by IU Indianapolis come from a variety of backgrounds and previous types of global engagement, but all share the passion to connect their students with real-life skills. The ten Fellows of the fourth cohort represent a cross-section of faculty with specialties ranging from computer science to art, language acquisition to social work and nutrition. As a part of the fellowship, all ten Fellows will instruct classes during the 2024-25 academic year that engage with a partner course at an institution outside the U.S. through virtual exchange, supported by their cohort and professional development from the Office of International Affairs.
The ten Fellows spent a portion their summer participating in a professional development workshop hosted by Florida International University. Through this workshop, Fellows learned more about the Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) method of co-teaching with instructors from around the world. The workshop and support from the Director of Curriculum Internationalization, Leslie Bozeman, and Virtual Exchange Manager, Jayson Deese, guided fellows through the steps of designing a COIL collaboration with their international partners. Mike Polites, a Fellow who teaches Humor and Communications in the School of Liberal Arts will participate in an exchange with Uzhhorod National University in Ukraine, shared why being a Fellow was so valuable to him. “[Virtual exchange] is such a unique opportunity for our students to benefit from, to expand their world view in a way that they otherwise would not be able to,” he said.








