Alumni Bulletin - Winter 2009 - (Page 4)

academics • 10 minutes with • advancement • lecture • business & economics ON CAMPUS academics GIVING VOICE TO THE ‘POOR BUT PASSIONATE’ PROBLEM: You are a zealous, but cash-strapped, non-governmental organization (NGO) afﬁliated with the United Nations. Although you believe your cause is worth proclaiming to the world, you cannot afford to have a regular delegate at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. SOLUTION: Send a Lehigh University student. Christine Stegura ’08, ’09G, Victor Soe ’08, and Catherine Vishton ’08 created the LU-UN NGO Delegate Program as a capstone project for the Global Citizenship Program, a cross-college certiﬁcate that prompts students to examine value and meaning from a worldwide perspective. They were assigned to improve the program for future students. “We wanted to create more ties to the global network,” says Stegura, a master’s candidate in sociology. The students ended up creating a program that allows them to represent NGOs that can’t afford to send their own delegates to the United Nations. And they even insisted that student delegates take an abbreviated class on the U.N. “The delegates program could have been a student activity, but the students moved it from an activity to an education experience. It’s an educational experience of a lifetime,” says Jack Lule, the Joseph B. McFadden Distinguished Professor of Journalism and director of Lehigh’s Globalization and Social Change Initiative, who serves as the program’s academic advisor. The U.N. is essential to many NGOs. Among other things, it ofDana Anderson (left) and Will Brehm (right) currently represent NGOs fers a central location for NGO at the U.N. through a program Christine Stegura (center) helped start. representatives to swap business who worked with the Indian environmental cards, ﬁeld notes, and ideas. The U.N. recoggroup Tarumitra, and Dana Anderson ’11, nizes thousands of NGOs, some of which have who represented the Jigyansu Tribal Research permanent representation at its headquarters. Others are “poor but passionate,” says Bill Centre, based in India, both last year and this. Hunter, director of the LU-UN Partnership, “The feedback from both the NGOs and and cannot afford to pay a representative’s the students was 100 percent positive,” Lule travel costs and board. As a result, their voices says. All of last year’s NGOs requested further are, at best, dimly heard in U.N. discussions. representation, as well as three additional ones. Stegura, Soe, and Vishton sent e-mails to “We have high expectations of expanding NGOs offering to be their liaisons. After rethis program and the number of our studentceiving positive responses, the students applied U.N. delegates every year,” Hunter says. for U.N. badges as members of their NGOs. Stegura hopes that more students will see “It’s a weird cap to be wearing,” says Will the inner workings of international organizaBrehm, ’08, ’09G and this year’s representative tions as she did while representing the Cherof Youth Challenge Singapore. “At nobyl Children’s Project International. points, I’m a Lehigh student. At other “I’m an idealist,” she says, “so I think the points, I’m an NGO representative.” United Nations is the best thing ever. To have Hunter, who initially suggested that a badge and to go behind the scenes was a the students construct a program to take whole new experience.” advantage of Lehigh’s distinctive NGO Stegura has been nominated to serve as a status at the U.N., helps the students member of the Peace Corps in Sub-Saharan navigate the U.N. Africa next year. Her role as a delegate gave her Last year, Soe worked with Youth direction, of a sort. Challenge Singapore, and Vishton rep“It helped me ﬁgure out what I want to do. resented the Korea Institute of Brain I want to be involved in the world,” she says. Science. By the second semester of last “The Peace Corps is my strategy for getting year, two more students were welcomed lost in the world.” (From left) Victor Soe, Christine Stegura, Dana Anderson, and Catherine Vishton prepare to enter the U.N. Headquarters. into the program: Olivier Lewis ’08, —Becky Straw 4 lehigh alumni bulletin PHOTO BY DOUGLAS BENEDICT

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Lehigh Bulletin - Winter 2009 Contents From the President's Desk Mailbox On Campus Research Arts & Culture Sports Teaming Up to Tackle Global Challenges Positively 4th Street A Sweet Job From the Publisher's Desk Alumni News

Alumni Bulletin - Winter 2009

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