There are moments in time when people can truly make a difference.  History is replete with stories of people who spotted change as it was happening and took advantage of new opportunities.  History also reveals the cost when major change is ignored.

Tracy Wu’s research gave her an education not found in textbooks on exploitation in poor, desperate communities.

UC Irvine sees a great opportunity to fundamentally change the world for the better – with an interconnected global community where people are motivated by a common good.

UC Irvine is the “Global Village Campus” that has determined to pursue such a path based on our inherent strengths in a multitude of academic disciplines that embrace our global society.

UC Irvine is already highly recognized in the humanities, the arts, social sciences and business in many aspects of the global environment. This campus initiative is engaging the campus stakeholders to shape and support goals set out by the many participating campus units.

The Global Village at UC Irvine will stand alone as a unique, highly globalized environment for learning and discovery.

The driving force of the Global Village Campus is the synergy between a high internationalized student body and faculty within an extraordinarily deep constellation of global programs and activities across the campus.

Our Global Village Campus initiatives:

• UC Irvine’s Extension boasts an extraordinarily broad set of global program Student exchange programs, from  English teacher training to specialized occupational studies such as biomedicine. The program currently serves over 3,000 international students from over 30 different countries.
• World institutes at UC Irvine number more than 20.  The institutes examine Asian, Jewish, Latino, and Persian cultures and languages. They improve the interactions of countries and cultures by exploring global peace and conflicts, immigration, international law, democracy, and ethics and morality. They study and predict global trends in population, social change, and security.  They look at the world with a view to build a new generation of young leaders, fully prepared for success in the global community with a full appreciation of the many facets of the peoples of the world.
• Faculty, students and community volunteers have used the resources of our campus to connect with the world through 25 unique projects.  The projects sometimes are completely staffed by volunteers. Others are formal parts of the university’s curriculum, giving students the opportunity to put their education into practice in some of the most desperate parts of the world. The Africa Project, for example, an Irvine-based all-volunteer project supports children in one poverty and AIDS-stricken community, Nkandla in South Africa. We may not solve all the world’s problems, but we can make the world better one community at a time. This program and more than a score more, are helping UC Irvine students improve the health, the environment, and the economy for people throughout the world.  They are offering a realistic hope for the future.
  
  The Global Village Campus
  As described above, there is a plethora of global activity that already exists on the UC Irvine campus. Currently at 27,000 students, the ultimate plan for the University of California, Irvine is to grow to 32,000 students. The Global Village Campus will evolve and develop as the percentage of students from other countries grows.
  
  While there are already a multitude of excellent, well run and greatly appreciated international activities on campus. A major goal of the Global Village Campus is to develop a powerful, highly effective environment for learning and discovery by first coordinating current initiatives and then expanding the level of activity and recognition. The Global Village Campus will be a major attraction and differentiating  factor for students from all over the world to choose UC Irvine.
  
  We are blending campus efforts into the Global Village concept. The vision is to transform this already highly recognized University to one that is truly extraordinary by offering students, faculty and the community a unique environment where global concepts pervade the entire experience.