Program Director: IHP Death & Dying: Perspectives, Practices, and Policies

World Learning seeks an inaugural Program Director for IHP Death & Dying: Perspectives, Practices, and Policies. The Program Director is responsible for overseeing program delivery and support for this unique undergraduate study-abroad program, including academics, operations, management, and administration. The program's learning journey takes place in four countries, collaborating with culturally diverse and interdisciplinary teams, and working with students from US accredited colleges and universities. This appointment will be offered with the academic rank of assistant or associate professor. The International Honors Program (IHP) is a dynamic and flexible academic structure that combines depth and breadth to provide a comparative and rigorous intellectual examination of critical global issues. The IHP program, a part of the School for International Training (SIT), offers international semester-long study abroad programs emphasizing the comparative study of critical global issues. IHP's learning model is grounded in experiential learning, critical pedagogy, cultural immersion, local perspectives, and global comparison. Designed around a central question -- what is the meaning of death -- this program seeks to demystify death through an interdisciplinary study of death and dying across cultures, contexts, and theoretical frameworks. Students will explore the meaning of death through the study of death rites and practices, learning how cultural, religious, and community beliefs about death contribute to a group's cultural identity. To further discover what death means, students will compare mortality rates across demographics and identity categories to identify socio-political determinants of death across disparate populations. We will look to popular culture, the humanities, the arts, and the sciences to determine what it means to die and develop the vocabulary and skills to come to terms with death. Students will have the opportunity to synthesize their learning in a culminating inquiry-driven project that utilizes ethically appropriate field work techniques to provide deeper insight into the cross-cultural dimensions of death. Through this multifaceted study of death, the program aims to accomplish two objectives: 1) to normalize death discourse and increase students' death literacy and 2) to interrogate how death and dying are used to construct, maintain, and challenge social and cultural boundaries, identities, and power structures. Each semester program will take students from leading U.S. colleges and universities on a multi-site study of death and dying in four countries on four continents. The planned itinerary is as follows: New York City, USA > Accra, Ghana > Bali, Indonesia > Oaxaca, Mexico. Each country program features rural excursions outside of the major cities where they are based.