By Suzanne Bowness
York International’s Globally Networked Learning celebrates 5 years and many successful student connections
What if you could enrich your degree through access to global education programming without needing to leave Toronto? Especially for students who may not be able to afford the time or financing to participate in studies abroad, the answer has become a reality through York’s Globally Networked Learning (GNL) program. This fall, GNL celebrates five years and learning opportunities for over 2000 York students and 2600 students from global partner organizations.
GNL courses are offered in partnership with universities abroad, and allow students to connect virtually with their peers, developing intercultural competency skills. GNL at York was founded by Dominique Scheffel-Dunand, a professor in the department of French Studies and now academic lead for the program at York. Scheffel-Dunand started GNL as a pilot using an Academic Innovation Fund grant, inspired by the wider Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) movement, which has been fostering international connections at institutions worldwide. Now co-facilitated by York International, in the last 5 years, 91 GNL projects have launched with 50 of global partners in 26 countries including Mexico, Ecuador, USA, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, France and Germany.
A sample success story demonstrates GNL’s appeal
But the enthusiasm of participating students is the strongest evidence of the program’s success. The Virtual Journal Club (VJC) course in the Economics department is a prime example. Created by York Economics Professor Karen Bernhardt-Walther, the course won the European Economic Association (EEA) Award for Innovation in Teaching for Karen Bernhardt-Walther and her German co-facilitator Matthias Lang from Ludwig Maximilian University (LMU) in Munich, Germany.
Virtual Journal Club connects York and LMU students to engage over zoom in discussing and analyzing economics papers together. Like all GNL courses, VJC helps students enhance their ability to collaborate across time zones, language barriers, and cultural context, all skills that enhance student's resume as they graduate and gain jobs in an increasingly globalized world.
From the original cohort, current graduate student Yunus Emre Bozkurt recalls VJC as a highlight of his undergraduate career. Interacting with another culture helped him to notice subtle differences between both. For example, Bozkurt noticed that German students were often focused on methodology, whereas the Canadian students tended to engage with issues and culture. He could also see the multicultural lens emerge in the analysis by Canadian students. “If you are living in a diverse environment like Canada, and there is a paper about, let's say workers, you will be thinking about the heterogeneity of the effect across different types of individuals,” he says.
Third-year LMU economics student Livia Anna Maria Hess took the course in a different cohort, dialing in across the time zones from Germany. She also liked the different perspectives, and especially facilitated social interactions via 30 minutes of cultural exchange at the start of the sessions, where the class shared thoughts on personal topics like music, holiday traditions and more. “I think it was a nice way to get to know everyone. I think it helped getting to know other people, to understand their perspectives, even on economic papers,” she says. She’s already given the course the best compliment: her referral. “I think in the new VJC, there's one or two people I recommended to take the course.”
A shared pedagogical perspective
While VJC emerged from pandemic lockdowns, Bernhardt-Walther says it has become her favourite course to teach. “It was a confluence of world events and semi-fortunate factors that that made this happen,” she says. Borne of a regular request from economics students for a reading course, she started VJC with a reading list and an idea an international co-facilitator would also heighten the interest. While she’s pleased about the course rollout, learning how to manage the many complexities of fitting the needs of two universities, two time zones, two academic calendars and two technical platforms was a challenge. “Anybody who wants to do this at York, call my number, send me an email. I'm happy to mentor you,” she says, fully willing to help others skip her learning curve.
Bernhardt-Walther is thrilled, though, with the results. “I think our students in particular get a lot out of it,” she says. “The cultural experience is amazing. We have such an international student body, but they still say, ‘you know, what, I never imagined I could interact with students in Germany like that’. It was just outside the realm of what they considered possible, in part due to financial consideration, in part due to language barriers, in part your cultural barriers,” she says.
Scheffel-Dunand argues that GNL is really a new approach to learning. “GNL cultivates lifelong learning by transforming education into a reflective and community embedded process,” she says. She adds that it’s also professional development for faculty members, given the challenges to co-design curriculum with international partners, plus figure out how to make courses work in practical terms.
Scheffel-Dunand is so passionate about the possibilities of the GNL program that she has just co-created an e-module with the help of York International to help fellow teachers create this type of course. The module is shared through York and also as an open educational resource on eCampus Ontario. Upcoming GNL courses being offered in the 2026 winter term include the Nursing course “Health of Families and Social Group Mansa Partnership” in partnership with Mansa Memorial Hospital in Ghana and “Sociology of Law” in partnership with Tec de Monterrey in Mexico.
Scheffel-Dunand emphasizes that she herself was inspired to teach a GNL course as a way to model flexibility and experimentation for her students, to show them that there are more ways to be an educator. She says it’s a mindset that is even more essential today. “The future of work is going to require adaptability, openness and not being afraid again of trying new things. If I model it, then I’m being an educational accompanist in that I learn as much from the process as my students.”
Faculty can respond to the next call for GNL course or attend an info session here.