From the Tulanian: A Global Citizen State Of Mind

Dr. Casey Love, Political Science professor and associate of the Stone Center, is featured in the September 2019 Tulanian magazine. In “A Global Citizen State of Mind,” she shares insights on her work with students as co-director of the Jeffrey A. Altman Program in International Studies and Business. Her contribution to the article is excerpted below:

Casey Love, senior professor of practice of political science, agrees with Burns that global citizenship can “entail a sense of identity and a sense of place in the world.” (Love is a 1997 Newcomb College graduate and earned her PhD from Tulane in 2005.)

Love co-directs the Jeffrey A. Altman Program in International Studies and Business. In this program, intercultural competence is among its goals. Altman Scholars earn bachelor’s degrees from both the School of Liberal Arts and the A. B. Freeman School of Business.

They travel to Southeast Asia (this year they went to Thailand) for a summer program after their first year at Tulane to immerse themselves in another country’s culture. During their freshman, sophomore and senior years, Altman Scholars take classes at the Tulane campus in New Orleans.

Their entire junior year is spent enrolled at universities abroad. They are required to take the majority of their coursework in the language of the host country.

Students learn to develop verbal and nonverbal communication skills. For example, in Thailand, they begin to understand cues related to “saving face” and adjust their behavior accordingly. In a TIDES—Tulane Interdisciplinary Experience Seminar— during the freshman year, the focus is on New Orleans as a microcosm of the world with its intercultural, interracial and interethnic differences. “There’s a lot about how to avoid being an ‘ugly American,’” said Love.

Students are encouraged to think about their privilege as carriers of American passports, which “basically grants us entry into any country anywhere, which is a right not shared by the vast majority of humans.”

“I think most American citizens identify closely with our country,” said Love, “but I also think that one part of global citizenship is not just identifying with the local, the provincial or the national group, but also with a more global society of human beings.”

The full original article by Mary Ann Travis can be found on the Tulanian website.