Past Projects
Since its inception, the Global Studies Institute has led and facilitated a number of significant projects to support international and global learning on campus and beyond. Below are a selection of key past projects.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) began the Development Diplomat in Residence (DDIR) program in 2016-17 with the aim to recruit and channel talent to USAID. The program places senior foreign service officers in universities for recruitment, international careers planning, and enhancing international affairs curricula.
CSULB hosts the Development Diplomat in Residence (DDIR) for the Western United States. The DDIR is available to speak to classes and student groups, consult on international affairs in the curriculum, and advise students on careers in international development and international affairs as well as internships.
The program was ended in 2025 with the dismantling of USAID.
Development Diplomat in Residence: Karen Klimowski
CSULB's final DDIR was Karen Klimowski. Ms. Klimowski has more than 25 years of experience as a Senior Foreign Service Officer and has held senior leadership and health officer roles across eight countries. Most recently, she was the Deputy Mission Director for USAID in India from 2021 to 2023, and before that from 2019 to 2021, she worked to establish USAID’s Indo-Pacific Office, focusing on South Asia.
Ms. Klimowski has also served in Philippines, Uganda, Kenya, and Indonesia, championing development programming in health, education, economic empowerment, good governance, environment, and clean energy.
Before joining USAID, she worked with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in Atlanta, Georgia; Zimbabwe, and Malawi. Before that she served closer to home at the OC Public Health Agency in Santa Ana and began her career in international development as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Sierra Leone.
Ms. Klimowski is a product of California public universities, with a Bachelor’s degree in Physiology from UC San Diego and a Master’s in Public Health from San Diego State University. She hails from Santa Cruz, California, and brings a wealth of expertise and insight, as well as an incredible energy to mentoring our students in pursuing international careers.
Prior to joining USAID, Karen worked for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Zimbabwe, and Malawi; the Orange County Health Care Agency in Santa Ana, California; and various non-governmental organizations. She started her career in development as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Sierra Leone, West Africa.
Ms. Klimowski can be found on LinkedIn @karenklimowski and via email: karen.klimowski@csulb.edu
GSI has become a hub for research on global learning in the CSULB curriculum. It has conducted several smaller studies such as the placement of CSULB on comprehensive internationalization compared to like institutions and conducted a large, multi-year projects called the Global Learning Inventory. The first round of the inventory was completed in 2013. There have been three additional rounds conducted in 2017, 2019, and 2021-22.
This “deep dive” across modes of international education delivery and potential learning outcomes from that delivery across all sections of all courses offered at CSULB as well as faculty-led study abroad since 2010 has already been used to identity challenges and create reforms to the global capstone requirement in General Education at CSULB and by individual departments and programs (Nursing, Honors, Criminal Justice, etc.) looking to hone global learning in their curriculum. Early rounds drove a hypothesis that there is a relationship between global learning outcomes and writing learning outcomes, leading to writing education delivery and potential learning to be added in 2019 and 2021-22.
With a decade of data now in hand holding the ability to track change of time and nuance different international education pathways, GSI is working with the International Education Committee of the Academic Senate to hone global learning outcomes. In Spring 2023, The Global Studies Institute released a 10-year report and presented it at the May 2023 meeting of NAFSA: Association of International Educators.
The California Global Education Project is one of nine California Subject Matter Projects administered by the University of California Office of the President. CGEP provided on-going quality professional development designed by university faculty, teacher leaders, and teacher practitioners to improve instructional practices and lead to increased achievement for all students. CGEP promoted global education through high-quality, standards-based, and interdisciplinary professional learning programs for educators in California dedicated to developing global competence, which includes curiosity, creativity, empathy, integrity, and active citizenship, in PK-12 students. The project was funded by grants from the US Department of Education and the UC Office of the President. CGEP's statewide office is located in the College of Education at San Diego State University.
The CGEP director, Barbara Doten, taught history-social science and foundations of law courses in the Law Academy at Juan R. Cabrillo High School in the Long Beach Unified School District. With the exception of three years as the Teaching American History Grant Coordinator in the Los Angeles County Office of Education, Barbara's teaching career spans 36 years as a middle and high school teacher in the Los Angeles and Long Beach Unified school districts. She became a National Board Certified Teacher in History/Social Science in 2007 and has taught instructional methodology courses at CSU Long Beach and CSU Dominguez Hills since 2005. She holds a BA (History/Political Science) and MA (Education) degree from CSU Los Angeles, as well as a Bilingual Certificate of Competency in Spanish. In 2004, the California Council for the Social Studies recognized Barbara as the High School Teacher of the Year. Most recently, she has written and received grants from UCLA's Center X and the LA County Education Foundation to incorporate culturally relevant curricula and civics into the secondary curricula. As a result of these grants, her civic team at Juan R. Cabrillo High School has received accreditation as one of the first Democracy Schools in the state of California.
The Global Fellows Program ran for five years with great success until the pandemic. It was frozen during the pandemic. Effort was made to test the waters in 2021-22 to determine if students are ready for a return to the program. The determination was that Fall 2022 was too early. It is expected to resume in Fall 2023. Three to five undergraduate students receive mentoring, a small stipend, and a small budget to undertake a project of their creation that enhances global engagement on the CSULB campus. For 2018-20, The Global Studies Institute grew this to a two-year program. In the first-year students work on an internship or international learning opportunity, engage in monthly meetings with Leadership and Management Training modules, and design their individual projects. In the second-year students implement their projects.
