The Common Agenda

The University of Maryland will educate every student on systemic injustice on a global scale. 

We will emphasize racism and its inequities with respect to the environment, water, public health, education, food security, infrastructure, economic systems, cultural production, housing, and political representation throughout the world.

Our commitment to justice recognizes the interconnections between oppression in the U.S. and the world. Participation in international education in the U.S. has for too long marginalized Black, Brown, Indigenous, and other peoples of Color, and the curricula of U.S. international education has mostly ignored the gross inequality across the globe. The University is committed to repairing this harm and this neglect.

The University of Maryland is a global institution, composed of faculty, staff and students representing more than 130 countries, and we benefit from the expertise and international reputation of our scholars, researchers, artists, and other creative practitioners. We recognize that global learning can take place in various forms and contexts, including on campus, in the local community, through our connections to the nation’s capital, in the digital space, and abroad.

Every enrolled student will engage in an authentic and collaborative project-based experience that addresses global injustice. The experience of reparative international education will require hard work from our students, and provide them great purpose and satisfaction.

Global learning focused on justice will empower them as adults, professionals, and citizens who are dedicated to improving the global common good and that will enhance our common humanity.  

The Common Agenda centers on three Student Learning Outcomes:

Global Awareness

Students will be able to define, identify, analyze, and articulate systems of global injustice and their interconnectedness to the United States as they relate to key areas, such as the environment, water, public health, education, food security, infrastructure, economic systems, cultural production, housing, and political representation.  

Global Perspective

Students will identify marginalized and maligned voices from around the world and integrate their perspectives in the analysis of global injustice.

Global Engagement

Students will demonstrate meaningful skills through authentic, project-based global engagement that promotes global justice.