Resources for Advisors

As a part of the Lee University general core requirements, students must fulfill a minimum of 2 Global Perspectives credit hours in order to graduate:

GNST-200: Global Perspectives Seminar (1 credit hour) – GNST-200 is the required 1 credit seminar that serves as the prerequisite and pre-departure orientation for students' cross-cultural experiences. We recommend that students take this course during their sophomore year, but it may be taken during the freshman year year if they want to participate in a Cross-Cultural Experience (GNST-250, 251, 252, or 253) sooner. All students are required to take this course, regardless of whether they qualify for exemption or not. The seminar must be taken before students complete their cross-cultural experience.

GNST-250, 251, 252, OR 253: Cross-Cultural Experience (1-3 credit hours) – This GNST course is the actual experience of interacting with another culture, either through one of Lee’s many Global Perspectives trips or through an Individual Cross-Cultural Study. This is not a class which meets throughout the semester or summer term but the credit the student receives for the actual cross-cultural experience, in which he/she can earn 1-3 credit hours depending on the length and intensity or cultural interaction.

To receive credit for the Cross Cultural-Experience Class, students have a few options:

Participate in a Lee Cross-Cultural Trip
Many students participate in a Lee sponsored trip to fulfill the requirement. As a part of the trip, students fulfill their Cross-Cultural experience requirement and have the opportunity to take additional classes related to their major or towards their Core classes. Students will need to plan to make sure that they do not take the courses associated with the trip they would like to participate in ahead of time.

A complete list of the Lee sponsored trips can be found here.

Advising Students Who Plan to Participate in the UK Semester Program
Students may get 9 hours of humanities core credits on the trip, and any of the 4 courses (not counting the GNST course) can be substituted for any of the courses in the Exploring the Humanities basket including Western Humanities and Fine Arts EXCEPT for HUM 201, Foundations of Western Culture. All students will be required to take that on campus. The other 3-hour course will then count as a Humanities elective. In some cases, students are able to get permission for the extra course to count as an elective in their major depending on the type of course and department approval. Those situations are handled on a case by case basis.

Plan an Individual Cross-Cultural Study (ICCS)
Students can plan their own trip to fulfill the requirement. It is possible to do either an international or a domestic individually arranged experience. There is also an option for students to do a domestic church study in Cleveland over the course of a full semester while enrolled in regular classes at Lee. The trip must be at least 7 days in duration (not including travel days, and the 7 days must be in one country) and the student must have a minimum of 45 hours of interaction with the target culture. To read more about the Individual Cross-Cultural Study program, click here.

The application for an ICCS trip is done entirely online and can be found at the link above. The deadlines to apply for an Individual Cross-Cultural Study differ depending on when the trip will be taking place; the list of deadlines can be found here.

Exemption
Students are eligible for exemption if they meet one of the following criteria:

Extensive overseas military service tours, at least 6 months in duration
Extensive missions work abroad, at least 6 months in duration
Being raised or living in a foreign country as a young adult for at least 24 months
Academic study in a college/university abroad, at least 6 months in duration
Having spent a minimum of one year as a foreign exchange student during high school

Students must apply to be considered for exemption, even if they are an international student. The application, as well as more information about exemption, is located here.

Collaborative Study
Students can participate in a Collaborative Study with another institution and fulfill their Cross-Cultural requirement. There are also opportunities for students to participate with Collaborative Studies that do not meet the Cross-Cultural Requirement. In order to set up any collaborative study, students will need to email us at gperspectives@leeuniversity.edu with their availability for a brief meeting with Patricia McClung.