Live Wire Blog

Thinking globally

Posted on April 15, 2009 by Karen Pojmann

Highlights from MU’s International Education Week

The Chancellor’s Global Issues Forum. Photo by Shane Epping.

So far International Education Week has been all about appreciation — in two forms.

• Through awards ceremonies, Mizzou has shown appreciation for students, faculty and staff who contribute to the internationalization of the university.
• Through awareness-raising educational events, members of the Mizzou community are gaining greater appreciation for the role they play as global citizens in what is still one of the most prosperous nations in the world.

Some highlights:

Globetrotters

During the Tuesday afternoon Chancellor’s Global Issues Forum, students, staff members and international scholars received the first International Engagement Awards for global-perspective-building work on campus and abroad.

International Engagement Award winner Na Yang with Provost Brian Foster. Photo by Shane Epping.

Winners:

Outstanding Student Contribution

• Ta Boonseng
• Sampath Devaram
• Daniel Huaco
• Na Yang

Outstanding Staff Contribution

• Seungwon You
• Yuyan Zhang

International Scholar

• David Ledoux
• Steve Osterlind
• Corinne Valdivia

World views

Wednesday marked the wrap-up of the International Center’s 2008-09 Study-Abroad Photo Contest. The work of the winners and the other 25 finalists will be on display in Ellis Library throughout June.

A Dominican Father (Santiago, Dominican Republic). Photo by Christie Pautler.

• 1st Place (Cross-Cultural Moments) - A Camel Ride in the Desert by Jedediah McKee
• 1st Place (Landscapes) - Picture Perfect by Amy Ward
• 1st Place (Portraits) - A Homecoming by Anne Flaker
• Best in Show (Portraits) - A Dominican Father by Christie Pautler

Feed the world

Douglas Casson Coutts, a senior adviser for the United Nations World Food Programme, visited Mizzou Tuesday to talk to students about careers in humanitarian and development work and to lead a discussion about world hunger as part of the Chancellor’s Global Issues Forum.

Douglas Casson Coutts of the World Food Programme. Photo by Shane Epping.

During the forum, Coutts, who currently is developing an undergraduate course on world hunger at Auburn University in Alabama, shared some perspective-broadening statistics:

• Every day 25,000 people die from hunger or hunger-related causes.
• Though the world produces more than enough food to feed the 6 billion people on the planet, nearly 963 million people don’t have enough to eat.
• The top 1.5 billion people control 75 percent of the world’s income, while 1 billion people live on $1 a day and spend $.70 of it on food.
• Only 1 percent of the people in the world are college-educated, which puts Tuesday’s audience in an unusual position.

What can we do?

Mizzou is one of 87 members of Universities Fighting World Hunger, an organization that works toward hunger awareness and consciousness-raising, fund-raising, advocacy and academic initiatives to help reduce global poverty and malnutrition. As a land-grant research university in an agricultural state, Mizzou is positioned to make a difference.

“The land-grant tradition is very special. When the land-grant system was set up, it was focused on extension and giving back,” Coutts said. “What I’m here to do is to point out the privilege you have as one person out of a hundred who has a college education.”

Check out the organization’s site to learn how to help reduce hunger in Missouri and across the globe.