2008 Woodie Awards
Our role in transformation
Throughout the opening events of the Institute for Global Citizenship, President Rosenberg emphasized the Institute's
By: Isabelle Chan, Shoko Takemoto
Issue date: 4/28/06 Section: Opinion
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Throughout the opening events of the Institute for Global Citizenship, President Rosenberg emphasized the Institute's commitment to create “global citizen leaders” who can “think outside the box” in order to tackle the challenges that undergird our complex world. Last Saturday, Secretary General of the United Nations and true global leader Kofi Annan reaffirmed these principles, stating that in our particular period in history, the world necessitates global citizens who will have the energy and the creativity to find innovative solutions to bridge the “local” and the “global” and solve the intricate and ever more pressing issues of poverty, human trafficking, environmental change, nuclear proliferation, and world security that challenge humanity.
On the whole, the Institute appears to acknowledge the need to think outside the box, to challenge and rethink the ontologies that define our society, and to call for innovative approaches that will create a more holistic learning experience of integrating multiculturalism, internationalism, and service at the college. In principle, we certainly applaud the Institute's efforts of seeking to embody the elements of community, dialogue, and human engagement. In effect, like the Institute's leaders, we recognize the urgency of interconnecting local and global experiences in order to instill in students and community members the realization that the world has become ever more interconnected today, and that with such transformations, new responsibilities towards one another have arisen. But in practice, we must interrogate the processes of creating and administering the Institute for Global Citizenship, holding it accountable to the very principles that it seems to advocate. For in our view, if we can't even begin the discussion here and now, then how can we expect students as global citizens to tackle on the more global, complex problems that challenge our world today?
On the whole, the Institute appears to acknowledge the need to think outside the box, to challenge and rethink the ontologies that define our society, and to call for innovative approaches that will create a more holistic learning experience of integrating multiculturalism, internationalism, and service at the college. In principle, we certainly applaud the Institute's efforts of seeking to embody the elements of community, dialogue, and human engagement. In effect, like the Institute's leaders, we recognize the urgency of interconnecting local and global experiences in order to instill in students and community members the realization that the world has become ever more interconnected today, and that with such transformations, new responsibilities towards one another have arisen. But in practice, we must interrogate the processes of creating and administering the Institute for Global Citizenship, holding it accountable to the very principles that it seems to advocate. For in our view, if we can't even begin the discussion here and now, then how can we expect students as global citizens to tackle on the more global, complex problems that challenge our world today?
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