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committee press room proposal for the institute civic engagement center
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Press Releases
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Press Room CONTACT: Doug Stone U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan St. Paul, Minn. - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Macalester Class of 1961, will be an inaugural speaker at Macalester College's newly created Institute for Global Citizenship at 10 a.m. Saturday, April 22, in the college Field House. The talk will be open only to the Macalester community and not the general public. Media members are welcome. Mr. Annan is the seventh Secretary-General of the U.N. In 2001 the Secretary-General and the United Nations received the Nobel Peace Prize. He is the first Secretary-General elected from the ranks of the U.N. staff, where he started as an administrative and budget officer with the World Health Organization in Geneva in 1962. He headed U.N. peacekeeping operations from 1992 through 1996, a time of unprecedented growth in the size and scope of those operations. He began his first term as Secretary-General in 1997 and was appointed for a second term in 2001 extending through 2006. A native of Ghana, Secretary-General Annan earned a bachelor's degree at Macalester, where he was a member of the soccer team and a star on the track team, winning the 60-yard MIAC track conference championship. He was also a member of the debate team and a state champion orator. He was president of the Cosmopolitan Club, which promoted friendship between U.S. and international students and a member of Ambassadors for Friendship, which traveled around the country promoting international understanding. He received a Master's degree in management from MIT in 1972. Last month, he was named one of the 100 "Most Influential Student Athletes in the last 100 years" by the NCAA. Mr. Annan received an honorary degree from Macalester and gave the Commencement address in 1998. Before becoming Secretary-General, he served as a member of the Board of Trustees. Macalester's Institute for Global Citizenship is an innovative approach to educating students to become citizen leaders in a changing world. It is intended to advance, embody and highlight Macalester's distinctive mission of academic excellence, internationalism, multiculturalism and service. The result of more than two years of planning and discussion, the Institute will bring together academic and co-curricular activities ranging from international studies to community service, as well as develop new programs inside the classroom and in the community. The mission of the Institute is "to encourage, promote and support rigorous learning that prepares students for lives as effective and ethical 'global citizen-leaders;' innovative scholarship that enriches the public and academic discourse on important issues of global significance; and meaningful service that enhances such learning and/or scholarship while enriching the communities within which Macalester is embedded." In addition to the major addresses by Secretary-General Annan and last month by New York Times columnist and author Thomas L. Friedman, other Institute activities will include an annual spring conference focusing on students' work in civic engagement; visiting scholars; new study-abroad ventures for students; and new courses and new opportunities for students to partner with community organizations. "We are trying both to strengthen our commitment to prepare students for engaged citizenship and socially responsible leadership and to forge our own work on internationalism, multiculturalism and service in a more compelling, integrated and intellectually powerful whole," said Macalester President Brian Rosenberg. Rosenberg noted that the motivation behind the Institute is the shared commitment within the Macalester community to strengthening "a sense not merely of what would be good for Macalester, but of what good Macalester, through its graduates, can do in the world." The Institute will be headed by Professor Ahmed Samatar, currently James Wallace Professor and dean of International Studies and Programming, who will now become dean of the Institute. Andrew Latham, a political science professor, will be an associate dean, as will Karin Trail-Johnson, now director of the Community Service Office. The Institute will have a campus-wide steering committee as well as an outside Advisory Board composed of distinguished alumni, scholars, public officials and community leaders with demonstrated records of responsible citizenship and leadership. "I am personally honored and challenged to be named dean of the Institute, but, more importantly, I am gratified that Macalester is creating an organization that brings together in one place the activities and scholarship that provide focus for our long-held community values," said Dean Samatar. "With the creation of the Institute, Macalester asserts itself as an academic leader in internationalism, multiculturalism and civic engagement." Macalester College, founded in 1874, is a national liberal arts college with a full-time enrollment of 1,841 students. Macalester is nationally recognized for its long-standing commitment to academic excellence, internationalism, multiculturalism and civic engagement.
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