International Honors Program (IHP)/Comparative Portfolio
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"I use something I learned during my IHP program daily. I am now living in Porto Alegre, Brazil working for EMBARQ-Brasil at the World Resources Institute. In many ways my job feels like an extension of IHP. There is simply no way I would be working where I am if it weren't for my experience on IHP. I am constantly amazed at how much I learned in one short semester, and how I continue to benefit from the relationships I made."
Jacob Koch, Yale University, Cities in the 21st Century, Spring 2009
Beyond Globalization / Academic Year
IHP Beyond Globalization
Reclaiming Nature, Culture, and Justice
Examine how the consequences of development are being addressed to meet the challenge of maintaining a just and sustainable world, through this yearlong program.
Students experience a variety of contested development programs and projects firsthand, and witness the emerging alternatives being tried to recover and maintain a just and sustainable world. From Tanzania to New Zealand, India to Mexico, students visit urban and rural landscapes and communities affected by globalization. Drawing on the fields of anthropology, ecology, economics, environmental policy, and politics, they examine how the consequences of development are being addressed to meet the challenge of maintaining a just and sustainable world, through this yearlong program.
Cities in the 21st Century / Fall
Cities in the 21st Century / Spring
IHP Cities in the 21st Century
People, Planning, and Politics
Explore how geography, politics, and culture affect whether people can thrive in cities.
Students consider the intentional and natural forces guiding the development of the world’s cities through an academic curriculum of fieldwork and urban studies. Students engage with public agencies, planners, elected officials, NGOs, and grassroots groups, in important world cities where exciting changes are taking place. Topics of inquiry include how the structure of a city enhances or impedes growth; who exercises power in cities and where power comes from; the role of state and local government in formulating development policies in a changing world economy; and the challenges public policymakers face in light of increasing inequity.
Health and Community / Fall
Health and Community / Spring (Option 1) Program
Health and Community / Spring (Option 2) Program
IHP Health and Community
Globalization, Culture, and Care
Investigate how communities can ensure the health and well-being of all citizens amid mounting challenges created by changing economic, environmental, and social forces.
Students learn to understand, interpret, and compare the biological, ecological, economic, political, and sociocultural factors that affect human health. From Southeast Asia to South Africa, in city neighbor-hoods and rural villages, students learn to listen to and understand multiple voices, including local community members, governing bodies, and NGOs. Students broaden their global perspective and deepen their skills in critical and comparative thinking, while gaining practical knowledge about the health impacts of globalization, comparative health systems, governance and policymaking, public health issues and innovative strategies to address them, and field-based research methods and analysis.
Climate Change / Fall
IHP Climate Change
The Politics of Food, Water, and Energy
Explore the social impacts of climate change through the political economy of food, water, and energy in some of the world’s most productive and vulnerable landscapes.
Students will learn about the varied impacts of climate change — extreme weather, desertification, ocean acidification, melting glaciers, rising sea levels, loss of biodiversity, and dangerous social upheavals — and will be encouraged to think seriously about realistic solutions. Students will meet with high-level policymakers and powerful business people involved in the food, energy, mining, transportation, and financial sectors. They will also meet with rural and urban working class people struggling to cope, such as farmers, fishermen, and climate refugees.
IHP Human Rights
Foundations, Challenges, and Advocacy
Investigate the history of the human rights movement, the state of human rights protections, and future prospects and challenges across three national contexts.
The program will spend time in four different countries. This comparative approach will highlight cultural variations in individual rights related to political freedoms and expression, underrepresented minority groups, and gender equity. Students will interact with academics, individual activists, members of civil society organizations, and officials of adjudicating institutions as they focus on the practical aspects of advocating and safeguarding human rights.