Fountain Valley School of Colorado announces the creation of the Global Scholar Diploma Program as part of the School’s mission to explore diversity and expand student experiences.

The FVS Global Scholar Diploma challenges students to develop an international perspective through a curriculum and set of experiences that focus on global understanding. Students who earn the GSD will have the knowledge, skills and attitudes to grasp the nature of global interdependence and pursue education and careers in the international arena.

FVS currently has 53 international students and more than seven percent of FVS alumni are international.

Requirements for the Global Diploma include taking several classes with a global component, an international immersion experience, active participation in a globally or culturally focused on-campus club, participation in community service projects that require direct encounters with individuals from other countries or cultures, attending global speaker and/or film events, and completing a capstone course that includes research, a leadership initiative and a presentation.

“Globalization is a 21st century reality,” says Global Education Director Dr. Susan Carrese, who was recently appointed to head the program. “At FVS we believe it is essential to embrace the world beyond our campus, our borders and our mindset. Our goal is to move beyond mere tolerance of diversity, to genuine engagement as school and world citizens.”

Carrese has been at Fountain Valley School since 2003 and currently teaches AP English Literature and British Literature. She has a bachelor’s degree in English from Pomona College and a master’s and doctorate in anthropology from Oxford University.

Headmaster Craig W. Larimer Jr. ’69 awarded Carrese with the Lewis Perry Jr. Chair for the Humanities, an endowment which will help defray costs of the program.

“I believe that all Susan has worked for at Fountain Valley over the last seven years to broaden awareness of other cultures is now embodied in the position of the director of global education,” says Larimer.