Vice Provost of Global Affairs and International Studies Lorna Jean Edmonds spoke to Student Senate Wednesday about Ohio University’s global engagement and the need to make an impact.
Edmonds said OU has the biggest global presence in Europe, which the university is trying to expand from. She presented three initiatives that hope to educate OU students and faculty in becoming compassionate global citizens.
The first initiative is to have students and faculty at OU that are from all over the world and to also send students all over the globe.
The second initiative is called Global Collaborative Online International Learning Initiative, or COIL. COIL is a program that will use technology to connect 14 universities from 11 different countries with students from OU and all over the world. There will be 25 professors from OU and 25 from various other countries, Edmonds said.
The third initiative Edmonds presented is called the Presidential Global Engagement Fund. It is a fund worth $200,000, which Edmonds believed could potentially fund 50 to 60 projects worldwide. The purpose of the initiative is to create relationships and engage students from everywhere around the world.
“We need to talk about global engagement with impact, and there is a big difference,” Edmonds said.
As the meeting continued, the Senate passed a resolution to fill a vacancy on the Academic Affairs Commission. The body appointed Haley Janoski as the new academic affairs commissioner for the Honors Tutorial College.
Senate also passed a bill to support the Ohio Fairness Act. The act is an Ohio Senate Bill that would add sexual orientation and gender identity or expression to the laws in Ohio that make discrimination illegal.
Owen Yates-McEwan, a sponsor of the bill and LGBTQA senator, said he supported the bill because of his personal experiences. Yates-McEwan said he knew every time he went to a job interview and he handed them his license, which didn’t match his physical appearance, he could be denied a job.
“Adding gender identity and sexual orientation to bills and legislation is important,” Yates-McEwan said.
