Students, local business leaders to explore meaning of global citizenship in Nov. 8 seminar

Students, local business leaders to explore meaning of global citizenship in Nov. 8 seminarOctober 31, 2007Kelly Homan Rodoskikahoman@syr.edu

Syracuse University’s Lillian and Emanuel Slutzker Center for International Services will kick off International Education Week this year with a University and community seminar that focuses on what it means to be a global citizen.

The two-panel seminar will be held on Thursday, Nov. 8, from 9 a.m.-12:15 p.m. in the Peter Graham Scholarly Commons, located on the first floor of E.S. Bird Library. Parking is available in the University’s visitor pay lots.

Ample opportunity will be given for discussion and questions after the panel discussions, followed by a buffet lunch. Those planning to attend should R.S.V.P. to Elane Granger, associate director of the Slutzker Center, at elcarras@syr.edu.

With colleges across the nation dedicated to preparing their undergraduates to be citizens of a global community, SU students and local professionals participating in the panels will tackle the tough problem of figuring out exactly what global citizenship means to a diverse student population and how it translates into the workplace and the job market. The panels will explore how issues of race, gender, nationality and background inform our concept of what a global citizen should be.

“I hope people will walk away with a greater interest in others,” says Granger. “It is our hope that participants will reflect on `global citizenship’ in a new light, as an all-inclusive goal and a vibrant social transition that challenges all of us, no matter where we are from or what color we are.”

The student panel discussion, to be held from 9:30-10:45 a.m., will include Mustafa Mohammed, an SU graduate student from Baghdad, Iraq; Kartikram Krishnakumar, a graduate student at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry from India; Charlotte Colon, an SU undergraduate from Puerto Rico; and SU undergraduates Danielle Alvarez, Celina Tousignant, Sinhue Mendoza, Shavon Greene and Jim Armstrong. Paul M. Buckley, associate director of SU’s Office of Multicultural Affairs, will moderate the discussion.

Members of the local business leaders panel, which will begin conversation at 11 a.m., include Peter Koval, vice president with O’Brien and Gere; David DiMaggio, program manager of SU’s CASE Center Industry Co-Op program; Hugo Acosta, founder, owner and publisher of the CNY Latino newspaper and owner of H.A. Technical Services; Tania Scully, formerly of Northrop Grumman IT; Frank Caliva, director of talent initiatives for the Metropolitan Development Association; and Patrice Bey, senior economic development specialist/coordinator of the State Empire Zones Program for the City of Syracuse and owner of the The Bey Group, LLC., a diversity and inclusion consulting firm.

Finance professor Peter Koveos, the Kiebach Chair in International Business in SU’s Martin J. Whitman School of Management, will moderate the panel.

For more information on the seminar, contact the Slutzker Center at 443-2457.