Be A Global Citizen!

This is the twelfth installment of the interview series called 'Foster the GCs.' I spoke with Jonathan Wray who is the Director of Career Development & Internships at Soka University of America. Jonathan has worked at SUA for over four years and has been engaging students in new and exciting ways to advance their career aspirations. Enjoy this conversation about how Jonathan views the mission...

On February 20, 2023, I led a virtual session about global citizenship at the third annual Dwight Seoul Conference. The theme of the event was 'Strengthening Communities.' This episode shows my reflections on the session I led about global citizenship and the role of imaginative empathy. Enjoy!  

I spoke with Halle Amore Bauer about her thoughts on global citizenship. She is a Global Politics and US history teacher at Dwight New York. With a decade of teaching experience working in public and independent high schools in both Ohio and New York, Halle makes anti-racist teaching and inclusive curriculum design a top priority. This is a great conversation about how to form authentic relationsh...

This is the eleventh installment of the interview series called 'Foster the GCs.' I spoke with Mary Patrick Kavanaugh who is the Director of Special Projects & Program Development at Soka University of America. Mary Patrick has worked at SUA for over 10 years and has created incredible programs such as Soka Changemakers and Bridges 2 Business. She has a fascinating career background that spans...

In January 2013, I traveled to Brazil for the first time with a group of classmates and a professor to collaborate with a NGO in a rural town in the state of Minas Gerias. This experience has such a positive influence on my journey as a global citizen given the fact that I would go on to spent six years teaching in Brazil. With the passing of ten years, I organized a virtual reunion with my class,...

We are back with more GC Talks! To kick off the New Year, I spoke with Terry Peet-Lukes about his thoughts on global citizenship. He has over 30 years of experience as a leader in market research and data analytics. Before retiring, he worked as the Vice President of Market & Business Insights for Laureate Education.  For more than 20 years, Laureate Education has remained committed to ma...

Today on the podcast, I spoke with Shivangi Khattar about her thoughts on global citizenship. She is a Doctoral candidate at Ashoka University in the Department of Psychology. She has been a consultant counselor and research associate as well as a career support mentor. Let’s get right into the conversation! Enjoy! Here are the article and video references that Shivangi mentions at the end of the...

This is the tenth installment of the interview series called 'Foster the GCs.' I spoke with Linda Kennedy who is the Executive Director of Philanthropy at Soka University of America. Linda has worked at SUA for almost 20 years and shares how much joy she feels for the work she does in supporting the incredible donor base for the University. Her spirit for SUA is contagious, and she emphasizes how...

I'm joined by Allie Wong who shares how she discovered her love for teaching in Elementary school and how her passion to support and guide students towards unlocking their potential informs her approaches to education. Currently, she is working for an innovative non-profit organization that trains teachers across the nation in methods of project-based learning. Allie is a former graduate of Soka U...

I spoke with Sofia Dugas who is the founder of Kyo Nutrition where she coaches leaders in the art of self-mastery through meditation, nutrition, and speech interventions. Currently, she lives in Bogota, Colombia. Sofia shares about her journey of uncovering her ancestral roots to Cuban culture through bold initiatives, language acquisition, and soul searching. She is also a fellow alum of Soka Uni...

This is the ninth installment of the interview series called 'Foster the GCs.' I spoke with Rob Duran who is a 2nd year student at Soka University of America in the Masters of Arts program in Educational Leadership and Societal Change. Rob has many years of work experience in the non-profit education sector and his current research interests look to how the private sector and public sector negotia...

Today's episode looks at the intersections between Chinese medicine and global citizenship. My guest is Dr. Corina Giselle who is a Doctor of Chinese Medicine and an acupuncturist. She runs her own clinic called 'Yin and Well' in Woodland Hills, California. She also happens to be a former classmate of mine at Soka University of America! I'm so happy to hear more of her journey in the field of medi...

This is the eighth installment of the interview series called 'Foster the GCs.' I spoke with Giulia Paié who is a current 4th year student at Soka University of America. Giulia is from Brazil, and has done excellent work creating content on social media for those in Brazil who are interested in studying abroad. She shares her experiences about getting to SUA and what her journey has been like thro...

I had a blast learning more about my fellow colleague at Dwight Global, Renata Nikolayev. She has traveled the world, learned numerous languages, and expanded her sense of global citizenship through varied professional tracks and experiences. Currently, she works as the Associate Director of Curriculum & Instruction/ Head of World Languages at Dwight Global. Enjoy our wonderful conversation ab...

I had the great pleasure of talking with Rebecca Tarlau about her thoughts on global citizenship. She is the associate professor of adult education and labor and employment relations at Penn State University. With a deep sense of social justice, extensive research in social movements, and an upbringing in activism, she talks about how her work is tied to and interwoven into liberatory practices an...

I spoke with another incredible staff member from Minerva University. Fatou Badiane-Toure is the Director of Outreach at Minerva, and she is from Senegal. Her curiosity and ambition has taken her around the world to places such as the United States and China. In her pioneering work at Minerva, she took the lead in conceptualizing and later implementing how student's experience in another country w...

This is the seventh installment of the interview series called 'Foster the GCs.' I spoke with Subina Thapaliya who is a recent graduate of SUA from the class of 2022. Subina is from Nepal, and has bold aspirations to further her interests in global development and sustainability in graduate school. At the moment, she is working in two different departments on campus. She shares her insights on wha...

I'm happy to share this wonderful conversation I had with Ken Kimura about global citizenship! Ken is a postdoctoral researcher at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He shares about his upbringing in Alaska and the ways in which different opportunities and state policies led to his growth. His research at Harvard focuses on the history of higher education, and Ken comes from a finance and m...

This is the sixth installment of my new interview series called 'Foster the GCs.' Today, I'm joined by Hiro Sakai who is the Executive Assistant to the President at Soka University of America. For almost three decades, Hiro has been supporting the development of the University in different capacities as a language teacher, admin staff, and executive assistant to the President. I appreciate and res...

This is the fifth installment of my new interview series called 'Foster the GCs.' Today, I'm joined by Jessie Ramirez who is a graduate student in Soka University of America's MA program, Educational Leadership and Societal Change. Jessie shares a great deal about his identity and mission to overcome climate injustices and act as a planetary steward for future generations. Jessie also shares an up...

I'm very happy to speak with Laura Balbuena for today's episode of GC talks. Laura is the executive director of the Fulbright commission in Peru. I first met Laura, or Lali, in 2014 when I did my study abroad program in the Peruvian capital of Lima. At that time, Lali was the director of the study abroad program through Butler University. I learned so much from this experience and, in large part,...

This is the fourth installment of my new interview series called 'Foster the GCs.' Today, I'm joined by Margaret Kasahara who is the Associate Director of International Student Services at Soka University of America. As a pioneer staff, Margaret has seen the development of the university from its early construction years in 2000. Together with her experience living and studying abroad in different...

How do immigrants find jobs in Lima? What impediments does inequality create for marginalized peoples in urban spaces? And how can global citizenship provide a lens for understanding these populations? These are a few broad questions that were discussed in my amazing conversation about global citizenship with Meylin Gonzalez Huaman. Meylin is a PhD student in sociology at Harvard University. She i...

The title of Ikeda's 2003 peace proposal is "A Global Ethic of Coexistence: Toward a ‘Life-Sized’ Paradigm for our age." I share a brief summary of the contents of this document while adding my own commentary on the overall significance of Ikeda's specific proposals in our current times. I encourage interested listeners to check out Ikeda's full text here (https://www.daisakuikeda.org/assets/files...

I'm joined by Preandra Noel on this week's installment of GC talks. Preandra is the Program and Office Assistant at Ikeda Center for Peace, Learning, and Dialogue. On this episode, she emphasizes the importance of friendship in building solid identities as global citizens. Enjoy!