In the past few decades, scholars have taken note of the spread of “American-style” liberal education curricula and programs to numerous foreign higher education systems around the world. The nascent literature on liberal education’s global diffusion however has examined some international contexts, including sub-Saharan Africa, less comprehensively than others. Furthermore, empirical research is limited on the mechanisms by which liberal education programs are adapted and enriched by local actors and institutions to acclimate curricula to their own milieus overtime and in practice. In order to begin filling in the gaps in this discourse, this qualitative case study examines the sensemaking and agency of liberal education faculty at a West African higher education institution, the University of Nigeria Nsukka’s School of General Studies. This research addresses the following questions: (1) what are the forces that influenced the initial development of and ongoing adjustments to the General Studies curriculum at the University of Nigeria, (2) how do faculty in the School of General Studies make sense of these forces, and (3) how do General Studies faculty exercise agency in their curricular work as they negotiate making sense of these forces? A ‘glonacal’ perspective on curricular change (that is, that the forces influencing curricula, as well as faculty sensemaking and agency, simultaneously arise, flow, and interact globally, nationally, and locally) underpins the theoretical lens brought to bear in answering these questions and generating findings. This study draws data from primary institutional documents from the University of Nigeria Nsukka, secondary sources written by and/or about General Studies faculty and their curriculum, semi-structured qualitative interviews with faculty members, and reflections on field research conducted by the author in Nsukka. Findings include a series of interconnected yet oft competing global, national, and local forces that have influenced the General Studies curriculum at the University of Nigeria from the 1960s to the present. The varying significance ascribed to these forces by front-line curricular agents in contemporary curricular work at the School of General Studies was elucidated through ongoing engagement with General Studies faculty. These finding indicate that while the salience assigned by faculty to some forces, namely at the global level, fluctuates across actors depending on their disciplinary backgrounds, content areas, and beliefs, attentiveness to national forces (imbricated with local forces), pertaining to the needs and priorities of Nigeria, is ubiquitous within the School of General Studies. By historizing General Studies at the University of Nigeria and interrogating this history through the sensemaking and agency of local liberal educators, this study provides a framework for exploring liberal education, and discussions of it, in sub-Saharan Africa in a more authentic and inclusive way.
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