The Phase 2 of the pilot Global Mentors Program, which launched last year, will start with 10 global mentors during 2022 spring semester. The mentors come from Taiwan, India, South Africa, Egypt, Serbia with expertise in music, democracy, public health, art, activism among others.
Vice Provost for Global Affairs Steve Mull says that bringing global leaders to Grounds is a way for students to have global experiences. “The mentors bring a lived on-the-ground experience to the classes and encourage a deeper understanding of the global issues,” he said.
The engagements for mentors include class lectures, advising students, helping organize an art exhibition, working with community members, screening movies, helping build innovative global classes, and public lectures. With these activities, they hope to share their unique outlook and showcase varied approaches towards pressing global problems.
“The Global Mentors provide an understanding that lives are intimately bound with each other; that there is wonder in building relationships across differences,” says Cliff Maxwell, from Global Affairs who is leading the project. He added that the mentors provide an opportunity for students (and faculty) to go beyond the academic.
Here are the mentors selected for this year.
Mentor - Srdja Popovic, Center for Applied Non-Violent Actions and Strategies. He will work with Steve Parks, Department of English
During the Spring Academic Term, Popovic will take part “virtually” in class sessions at least 5 times during the semester. During these sessions, Parks and Popovic will initiate an interview with an invited democratic advocate, then open the interview for questions from the class. After the interview, Popovic will lead a discussion of key concepts in organizing non-violent campaigns for increased democratic rights. Near the end of the term (tentatively in late April), Popovic will travel to UVA and conduct 3-day skills-building workshop with the students in the class.
Mentor: Dr. Laura Aragón, Director, Women and Gender practice, Pan American Development Foundation. She will work with Lean Sweeney, Dept. of History
Gender-Based Violence in Latin America: International Collaborations,” aims not only to help students hone analytical, investigative, and data visualization skills but also focuses squarely on students increased cultural competency. All of these skills are at the center of Dr. Aragón’s own expertise as founder of two human rights organizations in Mexico; consultant to UN Women, USAID, and the OAS; past Deputy Director of Mexico’s Office of Violence Against Women; and current position as director of Women and Gender practice at the Pan American Development Foundation (PADF), one of the largest non-profit organizations focused on Latin America and the Caribbean.
Mentor: Susan Thomas of SEWA. She will work with Rupa Valdez, Engineering Systems and Environment; Global studies; Public Health Sciences.
SEWA is a union of self-employed women workers based in Ahmedabad that has operated for 50 years across India. Susan will participate in several activities over the spring of 2022 and will participate within several courses, meet bi-weekly with students preparing the proposal for a community health worker course for the summer of 2022. She will also meet with non-profits and movements in the Cville area to share stories of working with the larger community.
Mentor – L. Antonio Curet, Curator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. He will work with Sonia Alconini, David A. Harrison III Professor of Archaeology, Department of Anthropology.
Curet specializes on the Archaeology of the Caribbean region, indigeneity and indigenous revival, and museum curation. His participation will provide participating students with an unique opportunity to learn real- world skills in museum curation. Curet will also be instrumental in organizing a class exhibition at UVA. Depending on the topic, media and exhibition goals (e.g. archaeological material culture, photography, interviews), it will take place at the Fralin Museum of Art, Kluge-Ruhe or at Brooks Hall.
Mentor - Professor To-hai Liou, Department of Diplomacy, Director of WTO Studies, National Cheng-Chi University, Taipei, Taiwan. The Mentor will work with Shu-Chen Chen, Associate Professor, general faculty, East Asian Languages, Literatures and Cultures.
Professor To-hai Liou is an expert in global commerce and will work with students in the spring semester on formulating a research question on an aspect of global commerce, business culture, and trade practices, literature review, analysis and approaches, and visions for future investigations.
Mandla Majola -- founder and director of the Movement for Change and Social Justice, based in Gugulethu, Cape Town, South Africa. The Mentor will work with Christopher J Colvin, Associate Professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences.
Mandla and the rest of the MCSJ team will interact in several course starting with Critical Interventions in Global Public Health during J-term. In addition, he will work also join the Public Health courses in the Spring: the foundation course for GPH majors and a global health policy course and assist students in a summer study abroad program in Cape Town.
Mentor: Dustina Gill, Nis’to, Inc. The Mentor will work with David Edmunds, Global Development Studies, Cliff Maxwell, Global Grounds, Laura Goldblatt, Glocal Culture and Commerce, Helena Zeweri, Global Security and Justice and Phoebe Crisman, Global Environments and Sustainability.
Nis’to is a Dakota-directed non-profit. Dustina will participate in a variety of activities over the spring of 2022. She will participate as a guest speaker in Spring semester classes. She will meet with students once each week who are working on the Indigenous environmental camp on the Lake Traverse Reservation. She will hold four storytelling workshops, with the assistance of the student-led Global Development Organization and the Native American Student Union.
Mentor: Dr. May al-Ibrashy is a licensed architectural engineer and an expert in architectural conservation
and sustainable heritage in Historic Cairo. She will work with Tess Farmer, Assistant Professor, Department of Middle East and South Asian Languages and Cultures.
Al-Ibrashy is a dedicated educator, as an Adjunct Professor at both the American University in Cairo and Cairo University and her participation will bring relevant, real-world insight into the daily life of people in the Middle East to UVA students; her engagement with GSMS students during her time in Charlottesville will facilitate the GSMS program goals of exposing students in the track to an understanding of the Global South and helping them network for future opportunities in research, internships, and careers.
Mentor: Moussa Yéro Bah, an award-winning journalist, activist, and poet from Conakry, Guinea. She will work with Karen James from Department of French and Nomi Dave from Department of Music.
Ms. Bah is a broadcast news journalist on Espace FM television and radio and is the founder and director of the local women’s rights organization, F2DHG (Femmes Développement et Droits Humains en Guinée; Women’s Development & Human Rights in Guinea). She will work with students in French for Global Development and Humanitarian Action also participate in three public events, which will be open to students in French at all levels as well as to the larger community along with film screening and discussion; 2) a poetry workshop; and 3) a panel discussion on francophone social and traditional media.
Global Mentor: Xolile ‘X’ Madinda, Director, The Black Power Station in South Africa. He will work with Noel Lobley Assistant Professor, in Department of Music. This project will create shared virtual and physical spaces for UVA students and artists from The Black Power Station (TBPS) in Makhanda (South Africa) to co-produce original performances to be staged as part of the National Arts Festival in July 2022.
