Campus News

Drake establishes Center for Global Citizenship
By Tim Garrick

The era of globalization has presented exciting opportunities and complex challenges for students. Drake's newly created Center for Global Citizenship aims at better preparing the Drake community by providing a forum to explore the cultural, political and economic changes that accompany globalization.

The Center was established in the fall of 2002 with a clear-cut mission: To educate students to function effectively in different cultural contexts, and to ensure that global and international perspectives and issues are an integral part of the intellectual and cultural experience of all members of the Drake community.

Center Director David Skidmore has been around the world. Having visited 13 countries on four continents, the politics and international relations professor now works to make Drake's campus part of a global world.
"It brings greater awareness of our connection to different peoples and issues and greater understanding of different groups across the globe," Skidmore said of the Center.

By sponsoring programs and activities dealing with global affairs, the Center has brought international and local leaders to Drake's campus to speak about their experiences with international issues. In addition, the Center invites community organizations to participate in conferences and special events.

In its first year, the Center already has brought to campus Nobel Prize recipient Norman Borlaug and the National Geographic nationwide geography contest, and is working to bring Tibetan monks for a visit.

In fall 2004, Skidmore will accompany students to Mexico for a unique study abroad program sponsored by the Center. Students will have the opportunity to meet and discuss international issues with people at the grassroots level.

Skidmore also hopes to create a global citizen certification program for students involved with the Center and its programs.

Students such as Marie Mainil, a junior international relations major from Belgium, have been active in the Center and instrumental in the growth of its student group, Students for Global Citizenship.

"We're building bridges between our group and other campus organizations so that maybe they'll give some of their time to global awareness," Mainil said.

In that effort, the group hopes Global Awareness Week, planned for spring 2003, will make the Drake community more aware of the organization, as well as international issues.

The people behind the Center
The Center was created with the support of a $225,000 gift from Des Moines business leaders Rolland W., LA'50, and Mary Nelson, and a $25,000 gift from Richard S. Cusac, a 1962 graduate who is a member of Drake's Board of Trustees.

"We are honored to receive major gifts for the Drake Center for Global Citizenship from three individuals who have all enjoyed distinguished careers in international business," said Drake President David Maxwell. "With their support, we are developing Drake University's first integrated effort to examine global and international issues and perspectives in a cross-disciplinary manner and on a university-wide basis."

Rolland W. Nelson is founder and chairman of Kemin Industries Inc. and his wife, Mary, is vice president of the company, which manufactures specialty products for a wide variety of nutritional applications.

"It is our hope that the Center for Global Citizenship will improve the cultural relationships that will extend beyond Drake University," Rolland W. Nelson said. "The fostering of better understanding of diverse cultures will improve the quality of life of all participants."

Cusac is a strategic business consultant who has worked abroad for nearly 20 years, serving in senior positions with CitiCorp (now CitiGroup) in Asia and the Middle East, as CEO of the Gulf Bank of Kuwait, and managing director of Merrill Lynch Capital Markets in London. He now resides in Incline Village, NV, and Rancho Santa Fe, CA.

"There is a great need for all of us to be more effective in a global context," Cusac said. "In its formative stage at Drake, I actively supported the concept. Now, I want to help the Center achieve its potential."
Tim Garrick is a senior public relations major.

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