BY | ERIN PETERSON PHOTOS BY | GREG HELGESON

Atang Gilika '10 was always at the top of his class growing up in Gaborone, Botswana. He thought his good marks would give him opportunity, but he says he often felt hemmed in by societal expectations. “Bright students get pushed toward engineering and medicine,” he says. “If you achieve something in life, it has to be in the sciences.”

Gilika had a medical school acceptance in hand when he decided he couldn’t follow the path he felt pressured to take. Instead, he enrolled at a United World College (UWC) in Montezuma, New Mexico.
The school, one of 12 around the world, is home to 200 students from 75 countries. During the two-year program, Gilika followed a rigorous academic curriculum and earned an international baccalaureate degree, studying alongside students from around the world. His decision may not have been the one his family expected, but it was one they understood: his father was a UWC graduate as well.

Gilika thought the experience would be something like a sabbatical, after which he’d return to Botswana and attend medical school. Instead, it was more like a launching pad into a new world. He decided to stay in the United States. “I really got into internationalism, and I started researching
colleges that focused on that,” he says. “Over and over, Macalester came up at the top of the list.” At the urging of another Macalester student from Botswana who was also a UWC graduate, he enrolled. Now a sophomore, Gilika is one of 93 UWC alumni on campus.

Thanks in part to the UWC, Macalester has been able to continue to attract hundreds of students from around the world who meet the college’s strict academic standards. Since 1986, when Mac
started recruiting UWC students, 258 have enrolled, helping give Macalester a large pool of international students that few other liberal arts colleges can match.

A new $13.5 million gift by Shelby Moore Cullom Davis will make Macalester even more attractive to UWC graduates. Until this year, Davis UWC Scholars were awarded up to $10,000 in need-based aid annually to help defray tuition costs. While that’s a significant scholarship by any measure, many UWC students come from very modest backgrounds, and need additional scholarships or loans to help bridge the gap (Gilika, for example, received a Kofi Annan International Scholarship in addition to his Davis UWC Scholarship.). Davis’s new gift, the largest in Macalester’s history earmarked for international scholarships, will double that annual amount to $20,000 based on a student's need, for students entering in fall 2008.

Philanthropist Shelby Moore Cullum Davis visited Macalester in March, when he received an honorary degree and announced his $13.5 million scholarship gift. Davis is shown here with United World scholars Johanna Clair Schuch of the Netherlands (upper left) and Atang Gilika of Botswana (lower left), and speaking to a class.

Davis, founder of the mutual fund and money management firm Davis Advisors, says the decision to give was easy. “UWC students are so motivated and hungry for knowledge,” Davis says. “The UWC mission is to achieve peace and understanding through education. These students pick this up rapidly and want to make a difference in the world. So that makes me a passionate giver, to follow that lead.” His commitment goes beyond Macalester. Each year, Davis donates more than $20 million to colleges to support international education.

Although the Davis scholarships go exclusively to UWC graduates, the entire campus benefits from the diverse perspectives these students bring to classrooms and dorm rooms. UWC graduate and Davis Scholar Claire Schuch ’11 has circled the globe to get her education, moving from her home near Utrecht, The Netherlands, to a UWC school in Singapore before landing at Macalester. She joined two classmates from her UWC class at Macalester, but her busy schedule—soccer, modern dance, and teaching English to immigrants—has greatly widened her circle of friends.

Because UWC graduates have already spent two years with classmates from every corner of the globe, Macalester (which boasts students from 87 countries, representing 12 percent of the student population) doesn’t seem like such an overwhelming leap. They quickly get engaged.

As the world grows increasingly interconnected through trade and politics, and as complex issues such as global warming demand action and consensus from many, it will become even more important for
leaders around the world to be able to communicate effectively. They will need to be able to understand different perspectives and work well together. At Macalester, these important conversations begin.

Gilika, an economics and geography major, knows that whatever work he ultimately pursues, he’ll be expected to represent Botswana well. But he also knows that he will have to bring to bear everything
he’s learned at the UWC and at Macalester to promote understanding. And even though he isn’t sure where the future will take him, he isn’t worried. Right now, his opportunities seem almost limitless.

100 PROJECTS FOR PEACE

Two projects devised by Macalester students have been selected for funding by the Davis Projects for Peace program and are being implemented this summer.

Graduating senior Leah Roth-Howe (Amherst, Massachusetts) is working in Chicago and Cambodia with survivors of the Khmer Rouge genocide and their descendents. She aims to raise awareness of their history among Cambodian and Cambodian-American teens, and to promote intergenerational dialogue, so that understanding may lead to comfort as well as future tolerance and peace.

The second project will be led by rising senior Zainab Mansaray and rising junior Arthur Sillah, who will work in their home country of Sierra Leone to rehabilitate the Sierra Leone Muslim Brotherhood School and promote community service among students.

The Davis Projects for Peace program, in its second year, honors philanthropist Kathryn Wasserman Davis, who launched the initiative on the occasion of her 100th birthday in 2007. Davis is the mother of Shelby Davis, featured in the accompanying article. Designed to encourage young people to create and implement their ideas for building peace, each of the 100 projects will receive $10,000 in funding.

Web connect: www.kwd100projectsforpeace.org www.macalester.edu/cec/scholarships/ProjectsforPeace.html

ERIN PETERSON is a regular contributor to Macalester Today.