Don't believe the hype
University Chaplain Lloyd Steffen on the new Global Citizenship Program:
“Ten years from now this will not be a special program, but a living reality in how we do education at Lehigh. A Lehigh degree could actually be known for emphasizing this idea of global citizenship — it may mean that students have attended in the entirety of their educational careers to the issues we are dealing with in the Global Citizenship Program, that they are acquiring certain skills, critical abilities and practical experiences that will be valuable for life in the 21st century.”
Sounds good, no?
In 83 words that took maybe half a minute to articulate, Steffen said absolutely nothing. “Emphasizing this idea of global citizenship” is jargon meant to embiggen the idea of Lehigh as an institution resolved to diversify itself; “acquiring certain skills, critical abilities and practical experiences” is a space-filler on the worst résumés and memoranda.
Such empty statements are a public relations joyride for the university.
Let’s suppose the administration wants to announce a new diversity initiative aimed to, say, highlight global perspectives of cultural differences (or any other meaningless phrase that uses at least two of those words). They take a couple of spin doctors armed with slick catchphrases and thick thesauri, throw in some positive, fluff-heavy quotes from university higher-ups and, voilà, a press release is created. Take that press release, along with a few more just as devoid of content, add an Alumni Bulletin crammed with full-page photographs and biographies of international students and Lehigh begins to look like the very epitome of a diverse university.
The subterfuge here is that all the polysyllabic words and pretty pictures in the world don’t add up to anything when the intentions behind them are less than noble. Public relations automatons can produce university-related fodder at a dizzying rate, but people do eventually wise up and see the transparence of their statements. The Global Citizenship Program, for example, is just that — a program. Although it will appear on diplomas and transcripts, it is neither a major nor a minor. Students who partake of this propagandistic abortion will be taking 26 credit hours with only a few extra words to show for it. For all the time and effort they’ll sacrifice, they may as well take on several more credits and major in a foreign language — an incredibly practical thing to have knowledge of.
Because, when it comes down to it, an employer faced with two résumés — one advertising fluent Spanish and the other containing the baffling phrase “global citizen” will place the former in the to-interview pile and the latter in the rubbish bin. If the administration wants to prepare students for a diverse world, it should stroll down the path already taken by most high schools and universities and require them to study a foreign language. Or international relations. Or political science. English, math and natural science are already requisite, so why aren’t any of these other advantageous subjects?
The problem with making this new program optional is that the students who take it are already interested in world culture and would take the same courses even if they didn’t have a fancy name attached to them. The rest of the student population won’t see any benefit if they can choose not to become global citizens.
Put differently, we all loathed sitting through slides in “Intro to Planet Earth,” but we all remember what an oxbow lake is whenever it shows up in a crossword puzzle.
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