Friday, November 20, 1998
Piecing it together
While many students focus their energies on local causes, others
set their sights on bigger goals
By H. Jayne Ahn
Daily Bruin Contributor
Human rights, sustainable development, refugees and arms control
are not the kind of issues that pop up in most students’ everyday
conversations.
However, there are a handful of students on campus who are
trying to make the world a better place, one step at a time.
Amnesty International (AI) and Model United Nations (MUN) are
both student-run organizations on campus that seek to educate their
members about various global issues.
Alex Papanicolopoulos, who has been part of MUN for the past
three years, considered the study of international issues a part of
"basic education" that helps students "reach a certain level of
intellectual and cultural awareness.
"It’s about knowing how other countries deal with and react to
changing global climates as well as the role of our country in this
changing global climate," the fourth-year English and French
student added.
AI’s main goal is to promote human rights through campaigns that
involve reporting on major human rights issues, lobbying
governments and ambassadors, publicizing human rights abuses and
working with regional human rights activists.
The club at UCLA is one of thousands of AI groups spread around
the world. The student group carries out the mandate of the
international organization through letter-writing campaigns and
education.
Each year, the group works on one or two specific campaigns,
which usually highlight abuses in a country or region.
"I think education is a big part of it and learning about these
issues in classes is important. But I like to take an active role
in these issues and that’s where AI comes in," said Vicky Melton, a
fourth-year international economics and political science
student.
Students in the club are currently involved in a campaign called
Rights for All, which focuses on abuses of human rights in the
United States.
Writing letters to heads of government institutions concerning
issues such as police brutality, death penalty, treatment of asylum
seekers, and disregard of human rights in U.S. arms trade is just
one part of the campaign.
MUN, on the other hand, has a more specific purpose, that of
educating its members about the United Nations and its activities
and policies.
Nearly 100 students help organize and direct various committees
for simulated UN conferences for high school students. In addition,
some attend collegiate conferences as delegates representing member
states.
Delegates at an MUN conference take on the personas of different
member states, and debate and learn to cooperatively formulate
solutions on pressing global issues.
Issues discussed range from disarmament and narcotic drugs to
refugees and regional economic problems.
"A lot of times, classes and the media give a very one-sided
angle, or Western, American viewpoint on these global issues," said
Renee Pan, secretary general of the club.
"An organization like ours helps me to look at international
issues from a different perspective (by representing different
countries)," the fourth-year political science and East Asian
studies student added.
The group held its annual conference last weekend, in which more
than 1,000 students from 21 high schools and 50 UCLA students spent
three days discussing and writing plausible resolutions to a number
of political, economic and humanitarian issues in a global
context.
Although the organization is completely student-run, it belongs
to and receives its funding from International Studies and Overseas
Programs (ISOP), an umbrella organization responsible for promoting
international education on campus.
Many of the programs are funded by the federal programs that
allow for the establishment of international studies centers at
universities across the country. The U.S. Department of Education
administers the Title VI of the Higher Education Act and
Fulbright-Hays programs to support the development of the nation’s
international expertise and strategies in the changing global
arena.
Carlos Haro, the assistant dean of ISOP, said the end of the
Cold War caused some congress members to be skeptical about the
need for continuation of the support for international studies
programs at the national level.
However, Haro also said that people only recently began to see
that "global issues, such as economic downturns in various regions
of the world, environmental pollution and movement of the people,
affect everyone," creating the need for specialists who fully
understand international issues.
ISOP includes six regional studies centers and a Center for
International Business Education and Research. Each center
frequently holds seminars and lectures on specific regional
issues.
The Center for International Relations, another program
supported by ISOP, recently hosted a lecture entitled "The
Conditions of Peace in the 21st Century" in which the Secretary of
Defense, William S. Cohen discussed the realities and demands of
the post-Cold War era.
In addition, ISOP offers grants for research projects in
international and foreign-area fields and also provides fellowships
for graduate students in the fields of international studies.
One popular undergraduate program is the Education Abroad
Program, which gives students opportunities to travel and study
abroad. ISOP also includes several undergraduate interdepartmental
programs in the fields of international studies.
"Because international issues aren’t things students see
directly in their everyday lives, it’s hard for them to see their
relevance and importance," Melton said.
"But I think many of the issues (such as human rights) are
universal and do affect everyone," she added.
Comments, feedback, problems?
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