New Team-Taught Course Offers Global Gateway to Northwestern Undergraduates
Northwestern University undergraduates interested in tackling today’s complex global challenges have a compelling new academic opportunity, Thinking Globally: Climate in International Studies (INTL_ST 201-0-1 / HISTORY 200-0-24), an innovative course co-designed and co-taught by Lydia Barnett, Associate Professor of History, and Mark Hauser, Professor of Anthropology. Offered jointly by Northwestern’s International Studies Program and Buffett Institute for Global Affairs, the course will be offered for the first time in fall 2025. The course is designed as a gateway into international studies and the Buffett Institute’s community of faculty, students and staff dedicated to generating new knowledge about pressing global challenges and promising solutions for addressing them.
A New Way of Seeing the World
With a focus on climate as a central lens, Thinking Globally will introduce students to international studies as a field that bridges disciplines—including history, law, human sciences and cultural analysis—to understand global forces shaping human lives and societies. Through the course, students will explore issues that transcend national and disciplinary boundaries, such as climate justice and the role of international cooperation in addressing environmental change.
This gateway course is among the Buffett Institute’s new bookends for its undergraduate offerings, which also include the Buffett Post-Baccalaureate Fellowship Program for recent Northwestern graduates seeking global careers. The course is structured to help students “see” globally, analyzing how historical legacies, cultural frameworks, legal systems and global institutions shape our collective destinies beyond national borders. Weekly seminars will introduce foundational concepts through interactive discussions, while smaller workshop sessions will guide students in applying those ideas to real-world climate challenges.
Gateway into Global Research
The course also features an applied research component focused on case studies in Europe and the Caribbean that will enable students to examine how environmental, social and political factors interact in different contexts—building both local sensitivity and global awareness.
Students will conduct in-depth team-based investigations into climate-related issues in the chosen case study countries, culminating in an individually authored case study proposal. These investigations are expected to draw on a wide array of resources, from scholarly journals and government reports to interviews and media. Through this experience, students will not only learn how to analyze a global issue, but how to build actionable, interdisciplinary solutions.
The course will help prepare students for several other global learning and research opportunities offered by the Buffett Institute, including the Buffett Undergraduate Research Fellowship Program, Elliott Scholars Program and International Senior Thesis Research Grant. In addition, students with successful experiences in the course would be particularly competitive undergraduate applicants for the Buffett Institute’s annual student research opportunity at the United Nations’ climate change conference.
Launch Your Global Learning Journey This Fall
For undergraduates seeking to better understand our rapidly changing world, Thinking Globally offers an exciting new opportunity to begin their global learning journey at Northwestern. The course is open to undergraduates in any year and any major.
To register, currently enrolled undergraduates must add the course (INTL_ST 201-0-1 / HISTORY 200-0-24) to their shopping cart in CAESAR by the deadline for fall 2025 registration, May 23. Incoming undergraduates should see the Registrar’s website for more information on first-year fall course registration. For more information about the course, see the course description and learning objectives.