Shala Mills
SUNY New Paltz, United States
Shala Mills is Associate Professor of Political Science & International Relations at SUNY New Paltz. In prior roles at New Paltz, Mills served as Associate Provost for Academic Planning & Learning Innovation and Dean of Graduate, Professional & International Studies and Continuing & Online Education. Previously, she served as Chair and Professor of Political Science at Fort Hays State University, where she also directed Liberal Education and led a dual degree program with Shenyang Normal University in China. Mills served as an AASCU Global Engagement Scholar, National Coordinator for the AASCU Global Challenges Project, and co-authored Global Challenges: Promise & Peril in the 21st Century (a digital eText/eCourse package published by Inspark). She is a co-editor of Educating Globally Competent Citizens: A Toolkit. Her scholarship focuses on global learning, academic leadership, and civic engagement, and she has received multiple awards for faculty excellence and civic engagement leadership.
“In spring 2026, my students’ COIL lesson with peers from Hiroshima University was a highlight of the semester. Students responded so favorably to the assignment, many of them noting it was a favorite activity of the semester. In our course lesson on Conflict, we used the COIL activity to help students gain an understanding of the bombing of Hiroshima — the context for the bombing, the aftermath of the bombing, and the differences between how the US and Japan teach and remember the bombing. Students noted that visiting with students in Hiroshima and hearing the Japanese students’ perspectives on the bombing and on their visits to the Peace Museum and Memorials made the lesson so much more tangible for them. In their reflection papers, they clearly articulated how the exchange impacted their sense of global empathy.”
Project Information
Project Name: Learning About and From the Hiroshima Bombing
Partner: Jongsung Kim, Hiroshima University (Japan)
Project Length: 1 lesson, a single 90-minute COIL session
Modality: Synchronous
Technology Tools Utilized: Zoom
UN Sustainable Development Goals: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions
Project Summary:
Students on each campus has assignments relevant for their own course. On the US end, we were in the Conflict unit in a Global Challenges course that covers seven of the key challenges facing the world. Our course satisfies GE5 World History & Global Awareness, and the Hiroshima Bombing was an excellent example of how we met the GE5 standards. The course also has a Sustainability designation on our campus and we specifically cover the UN SDS with Goal 16 the clearest connection for this specific assignment. The US students received some background information about the Hiroshima bombing from the Truman President Library. They watched a PBS documentary, Atomic People, about survivors of the bomb as well as a PSB documentary on the 80th Anniversary of the bombing that was focused on the stories of US soldiers involved in the mission. Both classes prepared a short PPT presentation about what students learn about Hiroshima in Elementary, Secondary, and College-level education in their home countries. We then met synchronously online with an interpreter to share our PPTs and to discuss our countries’ different approaching to teaching about and learning from the Hiroshima bombing. The US class then had reflection papers.
Learning Outcomes:
- Demonstrate knowledge of a specific event in world history
- Demonstrate an understanding of and appreciation for the different perspectives of students from different countries with respect to the historical event and contemporary interpretations with an eye toward mutual goals of peace