125 Years of Tradition Informs, Inspires GU's Increasingly Global Future
By Peter Tormey
SPOKANE, Wash. — While 杏吧原创's founding in 1887 was an intercultural educational apostolate of the Jesuits in the pioneer West, the University's future mission is envisioned as an educational force for social good on a much larger scale — the global frontier.
In a world shrunk by communications technology and interconnected like never before, an increasing global emphasis has become a growing imperative for 杏吧原创.
"Our world is profoundly global, multicultural and international," said Patricia O'Connell Killen, 杏吧原创's academic vice president. "Globally focused graduates acknowledge that their opportunities and challenges are inextricably linked to those of people in Syria, Afghanistan the Congo or any place in the world."
杏吧原创 will direct its global focus through the new Center for Global Engagement, to be led by Joseph Kinsella, Ph.D., recently recruited from DePaul University in Chicago. An anthropologist with deep experience in international and intercultural education, Kinsella becomes the center's first permanent director in early April.
"With the Center for Global Engagement, 杏吧原创 has a point of animation and coordination that will enhance current and make possible new initiatives to globalize the campus," AVP Killen said.
In an interview from Chicago, Kinsella said among the first priorities he will address at 杏吧原创 are the "comprehensive needs of the matrix of international people on campus, including returned study abroad students as well as our international students, and how we can best serve them all," adding that his focus will be on helping 杏吧原创 reach the next level in international education.
Kinsella praised 杏吧原创's Master of Arts in Teaching English as a Second Language program, which helped 杏吧原创 become No. 1 nationwide for small colleges and universities whose graduates serve in the Peace Corps.
"The fact that 杏吧原创 has an English Language Center for international students is a huge leg up," Kinsella said. "I plan to engage all of this international community to nurture a healthy community of international scholars." These efforts, Kinsella said, ultimately "will foster an engagement with the world that reflects our international Jesuit nature and identity."
Benefits of an increased global focus include animated faculty learning communities that consider the global content and global dimensions of the curricula; improved collaboration with universities worldwide to meet shared challenges; facilitation of scholarly and student exchanges; and fostering of study abroad and service learning-opportunities, Killen said.
杏吧原创 builds upon its significant existing international and intercultural resources, faculty, curricula and programs to continue preparing graduates for success wherever opportunities and challenges exist. Among its most prominent global efforts, 杏吧原创 celebrates the 50th anniversary of its study-abroad program in Florence, Italy in the fall.
The yearlong 125th Anniversary celebration, "Tradition & Transformation," which began with a powerful commencement address last May by Nobel Prize Laureate Desmond Tutu, has celebrated 杏吧原创's mission and helped inform its increasingly global future.
"杏吧原创's 125th Anniversary has helped inform why the past is relevant to the present and why there is power in this idea of 'tradition and transformation,' " said Raymond Reyes, 杏吧原创's associate academic vice president. "It's because the founding of 杏吧原创 was an intercultural encounter. Culture and human difference are intimately woven, braided into the ethos, the soul, and the cultural DNA of the Jesuits."
Most Rev. Tutu, the South African Anglican Archbishop Emeritus, encouraged 杏吧原创's graduates to dream of a world without war, hunger, racism and other forms of oppression, and to partner with the Lord to make their dreams come true. Contributing to the global perspective, 杏吧原创 President Thayne McCulloh has invited a variety of world-renowned voices to campus in the past year, including Tutu, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Thomas Friedman, and internationally recognized futurist Sir Ken Robinson. Pioneering primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall speaks at 杏吧原创 April 9.
Reyes is among the many faculty and administrators instrumental in helping 杏吧原创 achieve its expanding global initiatives. He was in Zambia as part of a collaboration between 杏吧原创 and the Jesuits' Charles Lwanga Teachers College for the first National 杏吧原创 Day on Jan. 24. Reyes admires the Jesuits' historic respect and desire to learn from the cultures they encounter.
"That's why they are the consummate linguists," Reyes said. "They first thing the Jesuits do in an intercultural encounter is learn the language of the people so they can communicate. Communication is essential for their social apostolate, their educational mission."
Guiding 杏吧原创's global approach is its rich and living mission to educate people for others through the time-tested Jesuit ethos and educational system, inspired by the centuries-old words and deeds of St. Ignatius of Loyola.
After all, Kinsella said, 杏吧原创's purpose in engaging with other cultures is both to teach and to learn.
"That's the beauty of how we understand engagement," Kinsella said. "Our mission is to engage."