On the afternoon of Friday, November 4th, 31 very anxious but talkative students representing over 12 different countries, boarded a Penn State Blue Bus and headed to the Nature’s Inn at Bald Eagle State Park for the two and a half day Global Engagement Leadership Experience (GELE). GELE is a collaborative program between the University Office of Global Programs (UOGP) and the Office of Student Activities. GELE was created, implemented and is currently facilitated by Kristin Thomas from UOGP and Gina Hurny from Student Activities. GELE was created specifically to address the need for intentional and informative intercultural dialogue between international and domestic students in an effort to improve the global climate on campus.
UOGP is working tirelessly to internationalize students’ curricular and co-curricular experiences on and off campus, supporting them in the transformational journey to become globally responsible citizens. The Office of Student Activities has long desired to add an international component to their leadership development programming efforts in an effort to more thoroughly develop and prepare students to be effective leaders in a global society.
GELE began with a brief welcome by Kristin and then we transitioned into the first segment, “Building Community.” Students spent time in the large group introducing themselves by sharing their major, class standing and country of origin followed by the history of their name, teaching the rest of the group how to say hello in their native language, and finally they were asked to select a card with a picture on it that best represented what they were feeling at that moment about their participation in GELE.
After a wonderful dinner the group was divided into the two fictional cultures that make up the BaFa BaFa cultural simulation. One group immediately became Alphans as members of the Alpha culture and the other group Betans as members of the Beta culture. Members of each culture are escorted in smaller groups to visit the opposite culture. When visiting the new culture it is quite apparent that the visitors do not speak the native language nor do they understand and/or respect the traditions and customs of the new culture. BaFa BaFa is designed to give participants a complex understanding of what it is like to try and become a member of a culture completely different from your own.
BaFa BaFa ended with a large group conversation where participants were asked a series of prompts in an effort to get each participant to reflect on their experience while engaged in this activity but also how it relates to their real life experiences. Questions ranged from “describe the other culture” to “how receptive was the other culture of your visit?” to “what emotions are you currently experiencing?” The most humorous, but effective, response of the night came when one participant was asked to explain her view of both cultures and she said” the Alpha and Beta cultures were like a mullet – the Alphas were a party in front while the Beta’s were all business in the back.” Finally the large group was divided into four smaller groups to further discuss the events of the evening. These small group discussions were peer-facilitated by four past GELE participants and allowed the students to reflect on the global climate at Penn State.
Saturday morning we awoke to find another beautiful sunny day, although a bit chilly until the frost melted! After a hearty breakfast the group headed outside to participate in a community service project. The community service segment is important because it allows for direct implementation of the concept of “thinking globally and acting locally.” The large group was divided again this time into three smaller “work” groups. A “leader” of each group was randomly chosen, their responsibility was to effectively guide their team in the successful completion of the project at hand.
We met with Ranger John while he explained the service project as well as the need for staining the three foot bridges located in the front and back of the Inn. He also made sure to explain to the participants how they needed to be extremely careful not to contaminate the soil by accidently spilling stain because this in turn would contaminate the water table. To prevent any sort of contamination, the students covered the immediate area of each bridge with large sheets of plastic. Once each bridge had its plastic in place students were given the necessary materials needed to both sand and stain their bridge. Despite the bright sun, it was still a bit chilly outside and as result each team leader decided to work their teams in 10-15 minutes shifts so that when students were off shift they could go inside and grab a hot beverage. This was a very effective motivator and the bridges were completely stained in no time and Ranger John was extremely pleased with the students’ productivity.
Throughout the two hour project each group was observed engaging in meaningful conversations, laughing, and even dancing as one creative group even managed to obtain a laptop in order to play music. All in all it was a fun, energizing, and productive morning. Upon the completion of the project students were greeted by Charli Lehman-Program Director for Service. Charli engaged the entire group in a meaningful reflection about their service experiences. By using the “ripple effect” Charli was able to help the students make the connection between the service they just completed and the impact that it will have on people that they will never meet. The students ended the morning by articulating how participating in the service project directly impacted them. Comments ranged from; “we had fun” to “improving society and the environment” to “it allowed us to give back” to “it helped me to recognize the privileges that I have”.
Charli joined the students for lunch and the meaningful conversations continued. After lunch there was a segment entitled, “Attitudes & Attires” This was a panel discussion facilitated by international scholars (currently studying at Penn State) from 5 different countries dressed in traditional “business” attire from their native country. The countries represented were; India, Laos, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Sierra Leone. Each panelist spent time sharing the tradition of their native dress as well as what the dress would be like for the opposite gender, as well as some of the cultural traditions from their countries. They discussed topics such as the dress code for school-aged children, the birth of a child, the naming of a child, wedding ceremonies, the business climate, polygamy, and the level of personal modesty associated each culture. The panel was a series of questions and answers between the panelists and the students. The panel was fun, engaging and educational and there was no doubt that the students enjoyed interacting with theses invited guests.
The next two segments were run concurrently. In order to allow for a deeper conversation the participants were again split into two smaller groups and then they rotated between the two segments, “Leadership Around the World” facilitated by Gina Hurny, Nimisha Thakur, and Katia Esarey and “Global Ethics” facilitated by David Miller-Martini. The “Leadership Around the World” segment began by asking students to shout out adjectives and characteristics that answered the question, “what is leadership?” Through short bios and video clips, students were then introduced to five past/present prominent world leaders including; Queen Rania of Jordan, Mahatma Gandhi, Liu Xiaobo, Bill Clinton, and Margaret Thatcher. Students were then asked to discuss the common characteristics demonstrated by each of the leaders and what role those characteristics play as they strive to become global citizens. The take-a-way from this segment is best represented by Ciulla (2003) “the meaning of the word leadership is not defined by scholars-it is determined by the way people in a culture use it and think about it.”
The “Global Ethics” segment featured some opening comments from David about the importance and characteristics of global ethics, a cultural role play that tested the participants’ ethical beliefs, and finally a passionate discussion by the student that left them wishing this segment was at least another 30 minutes longer in length. This segment set the foundation for on-going conversations over dinner as well as spilling over late into the night following the last segment of the day, The International Showcase.
The Intercultural Showcase segment was designed to allow a platform for the GELE participants to share something unique about their culture of origin. Participants had the opportunity to learn first-hand about a wide-variety of traditional customs including; attire, music, dance, toys, games, and spoken word from Japan, China, Thailand, Kazakhstan, Africa, and the United States. The Showcase was not only entertaining but very educational. The students all enjoyed the opportunity to learn and the fun atmosphere of the evening was capped off by the American tradition of a campfire with s’mores. Several of the international students had not yet experienced this American delicacy and the reviews were mixed, ranging from “delicious” to “it’s just not for me.”
Sunday morning was designed to prepare the students to make the connections between thinking globally while acting locally. Charlie Brooks, The Inn Keeper, started our morning off by highlighting all the features and amenities of the Inn that has it competing for a LEED (Leadership, Environment, Energy, Designs) Certified Gold rating. 73% of the construction waste from the Inn was kept out of the landfills because it was disposed in a more environmentally sound manner. Some of the most unique features of the building itself are: that the countertops in all the units are made from recycled auto glass and the countertops in the conference rooms are made from sunflower seed hulls, the building is heated and cooled using geo thermo technology, rainwater is harvested and used to flush the toilets, every inch on harvested rainwater results in 1500 flushes, 80% of all lumber used to actually build the Inn and all of the furniture used within came from regionally sourced materials, meaning less than a 200 mile radius form the building site, and finally the building itself is built on an East-West axis in order to make the maximum use of full Southern exposure.
After concluding the remarks by Charlie the students were treated to a segment on Global Leadership-Global Challenges facilitated by Neil Brown. Neil started off by simply asking each student to share how their current major plays a role in sustainability. The conversation was easy to relate to and for some of the students the connection was easy to make for others it was far more difficult and they need to rely on their peers to help them out. Next Neil asked them to think about sustainability being defined as “thoughtful progress.”
The take-a-ways from this segment included noting that poor communication prevents effective collaboration, that we each come into every situation with our own lens of perception, and that global leadership is a complex system made up of four components. The four components are collaboration, strategy, innovation, and communication. Finally, Neil reminded us that global leadership needs to be about the movement not about the individual and that the first follower is always the most courageous.
This incredible weekend ended with a final segment facilitated by Kirk Simmons. Kirk engaged the participants in a free flowing conversation about the global climate at Penn State. This segment organically morphed into the participants sharing what GELE meant to them and how they could take all that they learned and experienced back to campus with them. Our time at the Nature’s Inn ended with lunch and several requests for group photos. Then it was back on the bus to head back to campus.
There is no way to effectively measure the immediate impact that this weekend has had on the participants and facilitators. However, based on the energy, excitement, and meaningful conversations that occurred over the past weekend we have all been impacted in ways we may not even be able to articulate until days, weeks, or even years later.
Due to the high demand and the lasting effects of this program, GELE will be duplicated in the spring during the weekend of March 16th -18th.
For more information about the Global Engagement Leadership Experience http://www.global.psu.edu/dgrp/gli/