Proceedings: 2020 Global Voices on the University of Dayton Campus
The Global Voices Symposium is designed to educate, inform, and contribute to ongoing conversations to strengthen global consciousness and awareness on the University of Dayton’s campus and the larger Dayton community. It brings together faculty, staff, students, and community leaders to discuss and find ways to enhance global engagement within our community. It is the hope that these conversations will help us to find commonality in the human experience, identify things that unite rather than divide, and enable us to engage one another to learn and be informed. The symposium challenges us to continue to dare as we build a vibrant diverse, inclusive, and multicultural community.
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Enhancing Global Consciousness on College Campuses and Beyond: Proceedings of the 2020 Global Voices Symposium
Julius A. Amin
The Global Voices Symposium is designed to educate, inform, and contribute to ongoing conversations to strengthen global consciousness and awareness on the University of Dayton’s campus and the larger Dayton community. It brings together faculty, staff, students, and community leaders to discuss and find ways to enhance global engagement within our community.
These proceedings contain content provided by the participants. Some presenters did not include their presentation materials in the proceedings. Texts have been edited for clarity.
Contributors, listed alphabetically:
- Frances Albanese
- Julius A. Amin
- Amy Anderson
- Philip Appiah-Kubi
- Paul Benson
- Treavor Bogard
- Anne Crecelius
- Sangita Gosalia
- Elizabeth Henninger
- Furaha Henry-Jones
- Bernard Jones Jr.
- Benedict J. Kolber
- Father Joseph Kozar
- Joann Wright Mawasha
- Miranda Melone
- Mary Niebler
- Isabel Gerardino Rios
- Hayley Ryckman Ruland
- Jessica Saunders
- Emily Shanahan
- Adanna M. Smith
- Maya Smith-Custer
- Ernesto Velasquez
- Shuang-Ye Wu
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Cover and Front Matter
University of Dayton. Alumni Chair in Humanities
Front cover, half-title, table of contents, symposium program, presenter biographies
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Opening Remarks
Paul H. Benson
Markers of pointed challenges to global understanding, relationship building across national boundaries, and development of resilient intercultural competencies abound. Each day, we are confronted with news of geopolitical conflict and violence, news of resurgent ethnocentric nationalisms, news of fear about cross-cultural contact and engagement, and signs of entrenched, willful ignorance about so many of the rich traditions, values, languages, and frameworks of meaning-making that shape the experience of the human family across the globe. As profoundly disturbing as these and related challenges are, it is vitally important for our educational and scholarly work as students, faculty, and staff that we continue to refine and advance UD’s institutional goals for global and intercultural learning, discovery, and engagement.
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Introduction of Keynote Speaker
Amy E. Anderson
It is my great honor and pleasure to call Dr. Julius Amin both a friend and colleague, and to introduce him to you this evening. I’m thrilled we have the opportunity to hear from Dr. Amin this evening about a critical global issue. I had the good fortune to travel with Julius to Cameroon about five years ago, and I learned so much from him. We appreciate his willingness to share his expertise and personal experiences about the current conflict and anglophone crisis in Cameroon.
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A Dayton, Ohio, Community Casts Two Challenging Questions: Why Does Africa Matter? Why Care about Cameroon’s Anglophone Crisis?
Julius A. Amin
Certainly, this topic sounds important, even if it also sounds a bit overwhelming. That word global can seem intimidating, particularly when even the local challenges us. But this evening I hope to narrow the globe down and speak about Africa, and about the ongoing Anglophone Conflict in Cameroon. My hope is to show how and why the African Continent and Cameroon matter to us in this room and beyond.
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Why the Symposium on Global Voices Remains Relevant in Campus and Local Community Discourse
Joann Wright Mawasha, Furaha Henry-Jones, Ernesto Rosen Velásquez, and Bernard Jones Jr.
In this session, panelists addressed the question of relevance and importance of global awareness on college campuses and beyond. They approached the topic through different disciplinary and professional lenses as they discussed a wide array of experiences. Their presentations more fully humanized the impact of global awareness and raised questions and challenges that were vital to the overall symposium conversation.
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Student Voices on Global Consciousness
Maya Smith-Custer, Emily Shanahan, Miranda Melone, Elizabeth Henninger, and Isabel Gerardino Ríos
University of Dayton students share their journeys engaging as citizens of the world and discuss why it is important to foster true community in a global society.
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Alumni Voices of the African Immersion Experience
Mary Niebler, Jessica Saunders, Hayley Ryckman Ruland, Adanna M. Smith, Frances Albanese, and Benedict J. Kolber
In this session, alumni shared their experiences of African immersion while they were students at UD and how that experience has carried with them in their careers and personal lives.
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Enhancing Global Awareness on Campus
Sangita Gosalia, Shuang-Ye Wu, Treavor Bogard, Anne R. Crecelius, and Philip Appiah-Kubi
The Global Education Seminar (GES) program is in its ninth year of existence. The program serves as a key faculty development opportunity and supports respective academic units’ strategic priorities for internationalization. Faculty from across disciplines commit to participating in a one-year, seminar-structured program prior to a three-week immersive experience in a particular region. The intent is to provide faculty with a mechanism to expand their understanding of the world and, in doing so, shape new or existing curriculum, faculty or student collaborations, research opportunities, and/or other international opportunities. Regions of focus for the GES program have included China, Argentina, Peru, Chile, Ghana, Togo, and South Africa. “Enhancing Global Awareness on Campus” was a session part of the 2020 Global Voices Symposium in which we invited six past GES faculty participants to discuss their GES experience, stating its impact both personally and professionally, and explaining how they have been able to disseminate to the campus community the knowledge they have acquired. Faculty concluded their reflections with suggestions on what can be done to promote global consciousness and awareness on campus.
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The Urgency of Global Awareness
Julius A. Amin
The 2020 Global Voices Symposium occurred at a momentous time in the world. During the Symposium there was chatter about the looming threat of novel coronavirus (COVID-19), which already had ravaged communities in China. Few predicted its rapid spread. Less than a week after the Symposium, many governors and local leaders in the U.S. ordered K-12 schools and universities to close as a preliminary measure to curb the spread of the virus. Three weeks after the Symposium, eight states in the U.S. issued shelter-in-place orders for their citizens, and other states were contemplating similar action. Repeatedly, people were being told to wash hands regularly, cover their mouths when coughing or sneezing, and to use hand sanitizers. COVID-19 is a human-to-human infection and therefore the population was advised to avoid crowded areas. Globally, nations were placing travel restrictions.
Within the same period the World Health Organization’s director, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned of the dire consequences of COVID-19 in developing countries. One by one, nations in the Global South regions took measures to curtail the spread of the virus. COVID-19 had turned into the most dangerous pandemic of the 21st century. In an increasingly interconnected and interdependent global environment, the virus spread quickly, forcing scientists and academicians alike to realize that any viable therapy to the virus entailed collaboration across national and continental boundaries. Clearly, the global response to COVID-19 has reinforced the importance of global consciousness. To be an informed person in the twenty-first century entails an understanding of the interconnected nature of the global community. The speakers at the Global Voices Symposium used personal stories to emphasize that message.
