Award for Global Engagement

Dr. Claudia Parliament is a remarkable leader in international education, institution building, and global outreach programs in economic education. As a professor of applied economics and executive director of the Minnesota Council of Economic Education (MCEE), she has been active in international programs throughout her career. For more than a decade she has provided exemplary scholarly leadership for global outreach programs that have positively impacted thousands of teachers and trainers from countries undergoing economic transition. Dr. Parliament has been instrumental in creating unique partnerships between the University and other education institutions, including a recent memorandum of agreement between the University of Free State’s (UFS) Department of Agricultural Economics and the University of Minnesota’s Department of Applied Economics.

Dr. Parliament has been a leader involved in all stages of building institutional capacity in South Africa. She directs the MCEE, which served as a model for the South African Foundation for Economic and Financial Education (SAEFE) at UFS. Dr. Parliament was instrumental in the development of SAEFE and was one of the initiators in establishing an economic education effort that integrated traditionally black universities and UFS in the support of economics teachers. Through her efforts and the financial support she procured from the National Council on Economic Education (NCEE), a relationship was developed between the Free State Provincial Ministry of Education, UFS, and NCEE to provide “Train the Trainer” sessions for hundreds of teachers in South Africa.

Dr. Parliament has raised the visibility and reputation of the University of Minnesota around the world. She was one of three professors of economics who developed the syllabus for a training course in economics content, pedagogy, and assessment for K-12 teachers in countries of the former Soviet Union. Later the program was expanded to eight more countries representing Africa, the Middle East, South America, and Asia. Dr. Parliament also spent a semester at UFS and provided a professional development workshop to agricultural economists working with agricultural high school teachers in Upper Egypt. Many international educators who have benefited from working with her have argued that she is the one U.S. faculty member who has made the greatest difference in their lives.

University of Minnesota students and faculty have benefited from the insights and experiences Dr. Parliament brings to Minnesota. She has hosted delegations of education officials from Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Egypt, and South Africa that increased the understanding of how a university-based center builds partnerships among institutions of higher education, departments within universities, and state departments of education.

Dr. Parliament is recognized for her outstanding and significant contributions to economic education in countries undergoing economic transition by providing extensive professional development and mentoring of teachers and trainers of teachers in more than 30 countries. She has utilized the opportunities for synergy with educators in other countries, building programs of education in those countries and enhancing educators understanding of economics and pedagogy. Her work has enhanced the understanding of students and faculty and contributed greatly to the internationalization of the University of Minnesota.