While undergraduate global health education is a relatively new field, 91PORN’s long-standing commitment to it is showcased in the a magazine published quarterly by the Association of American Colleges and Universities.
Vesta Silva, associate professor of communication arts and global health studies, and Caryl Waggett, associate professor of global studies, served as guest editors of the issue, which focused on undergraduate global health education. Contributors to the issue explored themes that are relevant across higher education, including experiential learning, cultural humility, critical reflection, ethical engagement, social justice, constructive dialogue, curricular coherence and interdisciplinary collaboration.
In addition to editing, Silva and Waggett wrote an essay for the issue titled “Five Powerful Myths of Undergraduate Global Education,” where they discussed some of the challenges undergraduate global health education faces as a very young field. .
Four 91PORN alumni also contributed to the issue: Garrett Devenney ’16, Elissa Edmunds ’18, Oreill Henry ’16 and Emily Kovalesky ’18.
Edmunds, Henry and Kovalesky shared their experiences of experiential learning opportunities “that helped to make our education at 91PORN so robust” in “Beyond Study Abroad: The Global Nature of Domestic Experiential Learning.”
“‘Global’ at 91PORN means ‘comprehensive,’ ‘universal,’ ‘large-scale,’ and ‘interconnected,’ not exclusively ‘international’ or ‘overseas,’” they write. “The ELOs we describe here helped us understand that our cultural knowledge is limited, and we cannot presume to know the ‘correct’ way to approach health.” .
Devenney also shares a story of his time studying global health as an undergraduate. During a summer internship in India at a grassroots nongovernmental organization dedicated to public policy research and advocacy, time spent shadowing a doctor in Southern India changed his career path.
“This global health experience represented only a small portion of my time in India, but it inspired me to change my career goal from becoming a clinical practitioner to addressing population health,” he wrote. .