{"id":12702,"date":"2016-01-20T11:10:02","date_gmt":"2016-01-20T16:10:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/college.unc.edu\/?p=12702"},"modified":"2024-07-02T16:27:15","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T16:27:15","slug":"kcl-faculty-exchange","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/?p=12702","title":{"rendered":"Faculty exchange connects communities across the Atlantic"},"content":{"rendered":"

When UNC-Chapel Hill history professor Sarah Shields<\/span><\/a> recently watched students file into her classroom, it was a familiar scene: backpacks filled with text books, undergraduates with notebooks and laptops under their arms. But there was one particular difference: the sky outside was a muted gray instead of Carolina blue \u2013 and her view was of England\u2019s sprawling capitol city, instead of the fall foliage blanketing the Carolina campus. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Fac<\/a>During the Fall 2015 semester, Shields was part of the first faculty exchange with the UNC-King\u2019s Strategic Alliance. As Shields was teaching about the Palestine-Israel conflict from a U.S. perspective at King\u2019s College London, King\u2019s professor Jim Bjork<\/a> led two courses at Carolina in modern Central East European history. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The partnership between King\u2019s College London<\/a> and UNC-Chapel Hill originated in 2005 between King\u2019s School of Arts and Humanities and School of Social Science and Public Policy and UNC\u2019s College of Arts and Sciences. The UNC-King\u2019s Strategic Alliance <\/a>is one of the most ambitious partnerships between U.S. and U.K. universities, and includes longstanding and emerging joint activity in teaching, research, student exchanges and other initiatives in diverse fields.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe sense of connection and knowledge between the two department communities is getting deeper and deeper,\u201d said Adam Sutcliffe<\/span><\/a>, head of the history department at King\u2019s College. \u201cThe [faculty] exchange is a kind of glue bringing the two communities together.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Classrooms on both sides of the Atlantic were filled.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe have 60 students on that module,\u201d Sutcliffe said of Shields\u2019 course. \u201cIt\u2019s actually been unprecedented for a module of that type. \u201c<\/span><\/p>\n

Students at King\u2019s said the perspective of an American lecturer is what compelled them to take Shields\u2019 course;\u00a0they were learning from someone who had this history ingrained in their own culture and experience. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt helps to have this American view because Sarah was around [the United States] during events like Camp David or the Oslo Accords,\u201d said second-year student Georgia Adebowale. \u201cShe has a direct line to those events that perhaps a British lecturer otherwise wouldn\u2019t have. Memory is a very important part of history.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Bjork and Shields agreed that teaching in a new environment made traveling abroad a great experience. Each also took away their own unique experiences\u00a0\u2014\u00a0which they hope colleagues will share in future exchanges.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really interesting to me that we all write histories in particular ways, but it was really helpful to learn from the students how they\u2019ve learned history. How they\u2019ve learned this [Palestine-Israel conflict] history,\u201d Shields said.<\/span><\/p>\n

While Shields\u2019 revelations came inside the classroom, Bjork said it was time with colleagues outside the classroom at Carolina that will inspire him to share fresh ideas back home at King\u2019s.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a nice group of colleagues to get to know a little better,\u201d Bjork said. \u201cParticularly how the department organizes events internally to support research \u2014 that has been an inspiration,\u201d Bjork said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Shields is now back at Carolina; Jim Bjork is currently on sabbatical.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another faculty exchange is in the works.<\/span><\/p>\n

Story and video by Carly Swain, Office of Communications and Public Affairs<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Contributing footage and interviews from King\u2019s College London<\/span><\/a> by Jonah Klein. W<\/span>atch King\u2019s College London\u2019s take on this innovative faculty exchange program here.<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During the Fall 2015 semester, Sara Shields was part of the first faculty exchange with the UNC-King\u2019s Strategic Alliance<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":12705,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-global-programs","category-social-sciences"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12702"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12702\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47579,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12702\/revisions\/47579"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}