Global Consciousness and Global Citizenship: Rockefeller Moves Forward with Student Program

 

As ideas, capital, and people move freely across geographical borders, essential collaboration has becoming increasingly complicated with teams from various time zones, languages and backgrounds attempting to address the most pressing issues facing our society. Leaders in this fluid network need a variety of tools to successfully navigate professional and interpersonal situations: profound cultural understanding, impeccable communication skills and the ability to fully utilize technology navigating the shrinking globe.

Recognizing this reality Dartmouth students will face upon graduation, the Rockefeller Center has been working over the past couple of years and has tested and implemented initiatives designed to meet the needs of students going on FSPs, students who are interested in global issues, or students who have been selected for internships abroad. A total of 120 students have participated in these various initiatives and the Rockefeller Center has now directed its attention to establishing one of its newest offerings, the Rockefeller Global Leadership Program (RGLP).

RGLP is currently offered as a one-term program, which consists of 6 sessions lasting for one and a half hours each.

• In the introductory session, Gamaliel Perruci, Dean of McDonough Leadership Center, Marietta College sets the context for global leadership and takes the students through a simulation of how the world has progressed towards becoming globalized and how our cultural experiences shape our understanding of this world around us. 
• The second session led by Terrence Harwood, Assistant Professor School of Education, University of Indianapolis uses the IDI and helps the global leadership group to assess individual cross-cultural competence as well as the group’s cross cultural competence. 
• Stuart Grande, Post-doctoral Research Fellow from The Dartmouth Center for Health Care Delivery Science follows and discusses with students the importance of navigating through the difficulty of being uncomfortable with thoughts, interactions and personal bias in cultural settings that are different from their own. 
• Claudia Anguiano, Lecturer in Speech, from the Institute for Writing and Rhetoric at Dartmouth College challenges students to become effective intercultural communicators in the fourth session. 
• Elizabeth Winslow ’83, Associate Director of the MBA Program and Adjunct Asst. Prof. of Business Administration from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College introduces the principles and best practices for effective work teams within an international context in the fifth session. 
• Students are then given an assignment to spend time with and interview someone on campus from a different cultural background than their own. They present findings in a final session facilitated by Rockefeller Center’s Deputy Director Sadhana Hall, and Program Officer Vincent Mack.

Views from past participants describe the uniqueness of this program.  For example, one student shared the following: “Intercultural competence is more than awareness. I appreciate learning and I am less culturally competent than I imagined. Now I can focus on growth having a realistic understanding of where I am.”

The RGLP continues to strive and build leaders who have a nuanced understanding of self as well as their role as global citizens. Through inquisitiveness, self-reflection, and continued dialogue about global leadership, participants who have completed the RGLP are provided the tools to be effective in any cultural context.

Students have the opportunity to sign up now for the Spring Rockefeller Global Leadership Program. Deadline for applying to this program is February 23, 2014 and students may apply online.