Editor’s note: This commentary is by Emma Greenawalt, who is a senior environmental and global studies major at the University of Vermont.
[I] stepped off the plane into thick humidity with no idea how uncomfortably rewarding my next three months would be. At the time, I was a junior at the University of Vermont hoping to enrich my French minor and my environmental and global studies majors by studying biodiversity and natural resources in Madagascar for a semester. I had to travel 8,500 miles away from home to realize how little my education had prepared me for my experience abroad and how much I did not know.
Before I left I was surprised how limited my peers’ knowledge was about Madagascar — “Where is that?” “Do you think it’s going to be like the movie?” “I wonder if you’ll see Zaboomafoo?”
Of course, it was nothing like the DreamWorks movie, but I did see a Sifaka lemur, Zaboomafoo’s species, in addition to many other incredible plant and animal species. However, I found out I was wholly unprepared for the culture that I was immersed in for the three months.
As a senior global and environmental studies student, I have actively sought out courses to increase my international awareness and knowledge as well as courses that give me a non-U.S. centric perspective. With just a month left before graduation, I do not feel as though my global studies degree is completely justified. It was not until senior year that my viewpoints were truly broadened and challenged through global studies coursework. I wish these ideas could have infiltrated my education earlier and that I would have been able to gain an even more diverse global perspective than I have.
I am not the only student who feels this way, after student-led protests in February, the student organization NoNames for Justice presented a list of demands to the dean’s office. One of these demands was a “renovation of the diversity courses” at UVM. A similar list of demands was presented in September. After the February protests, UVM President Tom Sullivan agreed to provide and require professional development to all faculty who teach diversity-related courses. However, this is just the beginning of reform demanded by students.
Every student must complete two diversity requirements during their time at UVM; a category one requirement (Race and Racism in the U.S.) and a second three-credit course from either category one or category two (the Diversity of Human Experience). How could one three-credit course even begin to address the diversity of the human experience? If UVM genuinely wants to promote a diverse and welcoming community, the diversity requirements need to become the university’s and students’ priorities, not just another requirement. You should not need to be a global studies major or an international politics minor to graduate with a diverse global perspective.
On Tuesday nights, my friends and I go to trivia at a bar downtown and I am reminded again of how often students’ knowledge of the world is very shallow and specific. Most weeks, one of the questions asked is about the population of a chosen African country. It is truly embarrassing that a group of college seniors with varying backgrounds and majors have to guess the population of Nigeria and to have it still be off by millions and millions of people (There are 186 million people, more than half the population of the U.S).
Iowa State University created The Global Perspective Inventory (GPI) which assesses student learning and development and the importance of the campus environment in fostering global learning. The inventory measures how students think, view themselves as people with cultural heritage, and relate to others. Although this is an attempt to quantify how education can change a student’s perspective, I do not believe that universities should be attempting to measure students learning. Instead, they should be listening to their students. There is no metric or data that can truly assess student learning and UVM is fortunate that the students are eager and willing to help the administration reform their programs. It’s time the university starts to listen.
I thoroughly appreciate everything that UVM has given me and when I enter the real world later this month, I hope that I can take everything I’ve learned in class and on campus into my life. My hope is that the future generation of UVM students continue to push for greater diversity and equity on campus and continue to question the framework on which UVM is using to base its academics. You do not need to know the specific populations of all the countries in the world or be able to identify every rare lemur species but you should be able to graduate with confidence that your university did everything in its means to give you the tools to become a conscious global citizen.
