The College of LAS is offering a new minor in Global Markets and Society this fall. The application period began on Sep. 15 and is open until Oct. 15.

The minor is offered through the Global Studies department and focuses on topics such as corporate social responsibility, fair trade, global supply chains and sustainable business practices.

“The curriculum focuses on how markets interact with institutions such as the governments or intergovernmental organizations, and people, individuals like you and me, in a global sphere,” said Dr. Tanu Kohli, acting associate director of LAS Global Studies and instructor of GLBL 270, one of the required courses.

In order to complete the degree, students are required to take GLBL 270: Global Markets and Society, six hours of core courses and nine hours of specializations courses.

There is also an optional capstone project that students can participate in, which can include research with a faculty member or field experience with a market-focused organization.

“Students undertaking the degree will take courses from across the College of LAS,” said Dr. Timothy Wedig, interim director of LAS Global Studies. “The courses work around the idea of the mixture of skills, some sort of marketable skills, courses in economics for example, professional writing, as well as content, maybe courses dealing with particular aspects of personnel management.”

By adding these courses into the minor, the curriculum is supposed to show students how their major in LAS is applicable to a wide range of potential careers.

“The justification of the minor is that within the College of LAS, there are lots of courses, lots of ways to apply majors in the sector of markets in particular,” Wedig said.

“And we notice among our majors that the utility of what they are doing in the LAS is lost on them, in terms of thinking about how they might apply to business, non-profit organizations.”

Even though the minor is offered through the College of LAS, it is open to all undergraduates at the University.

“It’s also for engineering students or business students, who want to go beyond their very structured curriculum and do something completely different, want to look at their stream of work from a different perspective,” Kohli said.

There was a similar program within the College of Business called the Center of International Business Education and Research, CIBER, which was founded by the Department of Education through Title VI, offering a Certificate in International Business Culture.

“The program has been discontinued. And so that was the gap that we looked to fill in,” Wedig said.

However, there is a significant difference between CIBER and this new minor.

“CIBER was very much designed for students interested in working in business, whereas this can be sort of designed that students can select courses within their specialization for non-profit, for the public sector, where that intersection of market and society occurs,” Wedig said.

There are informational sessions about the minor being held at the Global Studies Conference Room on Oct. 17 10:30-11 a.m. and Nov. 10 from 1-1:30 p.m.

[email protected]