Vasanthi Srinivasan, a professor from the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore, is beamed to a USC classroom as the day's guest lecturer. She pulls the shades on the setting sun and welcomes the pupils she sees on her computer screen. Half a universe away, it's another beautiful Southern California morning.

It's business as usual for the USC School of Social Work students taking Professor Michálle Mor Barak's global diversity management class. They know there is no better way to learn about diversity around the world than from their international neighbors – literally.

Utilizing the school's distance-learning studio, a live interactive video feed connects students present at the University Park campus with their classmates in Orange County, who all interact with yet another monitor featuring that week's guest speaker. This semester, "visiting" scholars have come all the way from France, Germany, India and the United Kingdom.

Mor Barak originally proposed the idea for the class to the school's curriculum committee as she was writing the first draft of her award-winning book, Managing Diversity: Toward a Globally Inclusive Workplace, which is now used as a textbook in the course. With input from students, she determined that inviting speakers from other countries to talk to the class about diversity and management would be an inventive way to illustrate her lessons.

The university's technology-enhanced learning initiative eliminated the distance barriers and helped make her vision a reality.

"Our ability to bring guest speakers from other countries via video conferencing makes a huge difference because it demonstrates on a daily basis how global we've all become and how small the world is," Mor Barak said. "Students can communicate right in class with people all over the globe and talk about the different cultural schemas to deal with the world around us."

The global diversity management class is especially suited for the possibilities provided by distance learning technology. Mor Barak said the ability to learn about advances in the field directly from the scholars conducting relevant research is particularly advantageous. Speaking with these professionals helps students to be prepared and well ahead of the curve once they graduate.

"It was one of my most positive experiences at USC," MSW candidate Delilah Carolina said. "The typical classroom environment is nowhere near as exciting as the high-tech classroom. Real-time video lectures from across the world were very empowering for students, giving us a new level of interaction and encouraging us to more proactively explore the subject matter."

The class does, however, require more than the standard dynamic of teacher and students to function. Jason Chan, an information technology specialist, sits behind an opaque glass in a control room attached to the classroom. He zooms the camera on whoever is speaking. Where Mor Barak moves, the camera follows. Then it shadows the students asking questions.

Despite a few technical problems, students are quick to point out the benefits of distance learning. Many Orange County students were happy to save commuting time and participate remotely. Because each lecture is posted online following class, students have unlimited access, giving them the opportunity to review the classes as many times as they want and to expand the learning process beyond the classroom.

The course was designed with an interdisciplinary focus to accommodate different student interests. Some students are fascinated by issues of globalization and are interested in the topic in general. Others want to do business abroad, and some wish to promote diversity and equality in the workplace.

Mor Barak asks the guest scholars to talk about diversity management specific to their countries and regions. Often, they are also willing to share details about themselves as representative examples of a globalized society.

For example, Cordula Barzantny, who teaches at the Toulousse Business School and spoke to the class from France, is originally from Germany, but moved to France after falling in love with the man who is now her husband. Fang Lee Cook, the director of the Centre for Chinese Business and Management Studies at the Manchester Business School, spoke from England. Before moving to the United Kingdom, she was an interpreter in China, where she met and married a British man. Both talked about their personal experiences in adapting to different cultures.

"The speakers have interesting stories, and the students are able to connect with them on a human level," Mor Barak said.

Cook gave a lecture comparing diversity management in China and India, a subject she felt is likely to take on an increasing level of significance in the coming decades.

"The research is very cutting-edge and not readily available yet in many textbooks. That was a learning experience for everyone and something that would likely not have been possible without the distance learning technology," Mor Barak said.

Nico Lüdtke of Liebherr Aerospace, the guest from Germany, spoke to the class about facilitating relationships among employees in different countries. He suggested people's attitudes about time, tasks and relationships would be different in Germany than in Brazil and that misunderstandings can arise from those differences. Lüdtke's job at Liebherr is to minimize these kinds of misunderstandings.

He told students that people from relationship-oriented cultures, such as Brazil, may be offended if they think their counterparts in other countries do not spend time building the personal relationship and engaging in at least some small talk. On the other hand, people in task-oriented cultures, such as Germany, emphasize efficiency and timeliness and feel that too much small talk is a waste of time and interferes with achieving business objectives. Lüdtke works with all sides to help them understand that they are all striving toward the same goal but working to achieve them through different cultural customs.

"That was really eye-opening for students to see that in the global economy there's a role for people who do cultural facilitation. They learned that the economic incentive for cross-cultural collaboration is not enough; cultural barriers and misunderstandings can stand in the way of accomplishing tasks. Facilitators can help partners from different countries communicate and collaborate more effectively," Mor Barak said.

This year, instead of writing a paper, one of the assignments was for students to work in teams and analyze an international organization from a perspective of diversity policy, work-life balance programs and corporate social responsibility. Students had their presentations recorded using the classroom videotaping facilities and analyzed what they did right and what they could have done differently. Students chose a large variety of for-profit and non-profit organizations, including Google, Costco, L'Oreal, Univision, Warner Bros., Disney, World Bank and the U.S. Army.

Mor Barak and her students are always brainstorming on how they could make the class better and extend its reach.

"One thing I'd love to do is have the students connect to the class from their home computers. I can imagine having all the students communicating on the screen," she said.

Other ideas include inviting multiple guests to speak as part of a panel to discuss a hot topic and connecting to another class in another country to share each other's experiences. In a recent visit to the United Nations' International Labor Organization (ILO) in Geneva, Mor Barak discussed with her counterparts the possibility of a joint class with ILO interns and her USC class via video conferencing.

"Our experts were terrific in bringing both their professional and personal perspectives, but bringing two classes from different corners of the world together will add another dimension. It will allow students to explore global diversity on a more personal and emotional level," Mor Barak said.