In the Fall 2012 semester, President Jamshed Bharucha is offering a Global Forum seminar, a class that invites students from all three of Cooper's programs to explore some of the pressing global challenges of our time, with a focus on the developing world. How should we strive to alleviate poverty? How should we educate vast populations for a rapidly changing global economy? How should the United States and the West respond to competition from Asia and security threats stemming from global disparities, historical grievances and nationalist movements? These are just a few of the questions tackled by students and an impressive list of invited guest speakers from fields as diverse as macro economics and global entrepreneurship, to contemporary art and sustainable engineering. 

Class time will be devoted to thinking critically about big problems from a multidisciplinary perspective. Registered through the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, a mix of diverse backgrounds from participating students will enrich discussions with creative inquiry dislodged from any single, narrow academic field.

Some course materials from the semester will be preserved and made available throgh a class blog. After each guest lecturer presents a topic of their expertise and personal experiences, the students in the seminar will be invited to respond. Their papers will be published on the class website.