Practicing Global Citizenship Locally
Dr. Michael Westrate (Notre Dame PhD Alumnus in European and World History, 2014)
U.S. State Department Fulbright Fellow (Ukraine, 2010-11)
Director, Center for Research and Fellowships
Director, Presidential Scholars Program
Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of History
Villanova University
Abstract
In response to globalization, many colleges and universities have added some version of the following to their mission statements and student handbooks: “We encourage and educate students to become successful global citizens” (in the case of Notre Dame, this reads “educates and trains global affairs professionals, preparing students for effective and ethical professional leadership.” In many ways, higher education is following in the wake of the U.S. government’s flagship Fulbright Program, which has sought to build international bridges between peoples since 1946. However, despite the Fulbright program’s efforts and the work of universities, there is still little consensus on the causes and effects of globalization, and even less agreement on what makes for a successful “global citizen.” Dr. Westrate will address both globalization and global citizenship. After delivering a short history of globalization and some of its effects (and side effects), he will cover potential attributes and attitudes of a successful global citizen—and how these can play out on a practical, local level. This will be an interactive presentation followed by an open discussion.
Free and open to all.
Sponsored by the Fulbright Students’ Association, University of Notre Dame, and the Nanovic Institute for European Studies, Keough School of Global Affairs.
About the Speaker
In 2016, Dr. Michael T. Westrate became the Director of the Center for Research and Fellowships at Villanova University in Philadelphia. There, he leads a team of four full-time staff and seven part-time consultants who work every day, year-round, on helping students with their research careers and applications for major fellowships. Before moving to Villanova, he served for three years as the Program Director of the Office of Grants and Fellowships in the Graduate School at the University of Notre Dame. During his tenure there, Notre Dame graduate student external grant and fellowship wins steadily increased from $1.9 million in 2012-13 to over $6.4 million in 2015-16. Dr. Westrate has personally mentored, at both the undergraduate and graduate level, more than 70 student Fulbright winners and more than 60 winners of National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowships, in addition to winners of numerous other major awards. He sought out, developed, and wrote proposals for several major institutional grants to fund training programs, including successful proposals to the NSF programs Cultivating Cultures for Ethical STEM and the Louis Stokes Program. In addition to his work with grants and fellowships, Dr. Westrate has been the faculty advisor for a Fulbright Student Association, created a successful community engagement program for tutoring by graduate students, and led a team to create new diversity training. Dr. Westrate is a professional historian specializing in Ukrainian/Russian History and World History. He has taught history courses for a decade and continues to teach history at Villanova. He also developed a professional research and writing course for the Trine University School of Professional Studies and taught there from 2012-2015. He holds a BA in Political Economy and Communications as well as two Master’s degrees and a PhD in History (Notre Dame). He is a well-published scholar and likes to think of himself as a decent person and effective global citizen.