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Students must experience diversity if they are to embrace it. This article describes the process of integrating a required global experience into two design units and recommends integration strategies for other family and consumer sciences programs. The global focus began in 2000 with Interior Design's participation in a Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education grant. Semester student exchanges over 3 years were between Mexico, Canada, and the United States. The Interior Design and Fashion Design and Merchandising units then partnered with a Milan, Italy, design school for students to experience Italian culture, design, and language. Curricula were revised to allow for international semester programs, to enhance students' diversity sensitivity. Pedagogical considerations included philosophy identification, program design, and interdisciplinary collaborations.

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Authentic communities -whether academic, political, philosophic, social, commercial, or virtual -demonstrate NURTURE, a goodness of 'fit' between the goals of individual members and the community as a whole. Further, community efforts presume that the synergy of shared interests will exceed the product of individual ventures. Shared interest has traditionally been implicit, arising from historic or socio-economic context. Today however, technology has redefined community with magnified complexity. Technology leverages opportunity and threat, compressing time and space, expanding communication, and facilitating change. Shared interest, in this venue, must be made explicit to articulate the diversity and complexity of individuals, and to identify points of potential linkage. This article presents Personal Resource Systems Management (PRSM) as a paradigm for nurture, supporting the efforts of self and others to realize personal potential through authentic community.