Berte, Leigh Ann Litwiller

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Conversations on Jesuit Higher EducationVolume 40 Re-creating Jesuit Higher Education: TheGeneral's Challenge Article 259-1-2011Forum: Framing a Global EducationLeigh Ann Litwiller BerteFollow this and additional works at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/conversationsRecommended CitationBerte, Leigh Ann Litwiller (2011) "Forum: Framing a Global Education," Conversations on Jesuit Higher Education: Vol. 40, Article 25.Available at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/conversations/vol40/iss1/25Conversations 49In my office hangs a photograph, taken in a Houston, Texas,junk shop, featuring a saddle in front of a wall of old,wooden frames in myriad sizes. I find this image symbolicof the aims of education: education puts you in the saddleof life by equipping you with the frameworks necessary toprocess, organize, and understand the world. In his speech in Mexico City last April, Father Nicolás empha-sized the importance of frameworks by referencing the life ofMatteo Ricci, whose broad-based training in classical authors, thecreative arts, science and mathematics, and theology offered theframeworks—the “integrated” and “harmonious” structure—forbringing faith and culture together. Nicolás’s use of a Jesuit geniusand Renaissance man to exemplify the goals of Jesuit education isfitting because, in many ways, this globalized world in which welive and learn demands a new type of Renaissance learning fromall of us: multi-disciplinary, geographically expansive, and inter-culturally aware. Father Nicolás asks whether our Jesuit formationoffers the tools, openness, and integrative mind-set necessary forboth the development of individual gifts and the integration offaith and reason. Do the frameworks that we currently offer putstudents in the saddle of this globalized world?In answering this question, we must think beyond the keyframeworks that we have long utilized: skill sets (critical reading,writing, and thinking; quantitative reasoning) and interdisciplinar-ity (the methodology of liberal arts education). Critical skills andinterdisciplinary inquiry are essential to forming students who pos-sess the analytical ability to engage the complex issues of our day.But they are limited by the current shape of the university: disci-pline and department and their concomitant skills. We have tooffer students other frameworks—relational frameworks—thatFraming a GlobalEducation Leigh Ann Litwiller BerteForum=Introduction to the ForumCertainly the most challengingwords in Fr. General Nicolás’s talkcame in the final paragraph. Heinvites his audience — which nowincludes the readers of Conversations— not to think of ourselves as presi-dents or CEOs of large institutions,but as “co-founders of a new religiousgroup, discerning God’s call to you asan apostolic body in the Church.”   His question is, “What kind ofuniversities, with what emphasis andwhat directions, would we run, if wewere re-founding the Society of Jesusin today’s world?”To some degree most essays inthe whole magazine touch on thisquestion. But we specifically invitedseven writers to address this directly.Some responses are familiar, somewill surprise. We invite your respons-es for publication in our next issue.RASsj1Berte: Forum: Framing a Global EducationPublished by e-Publications@Marquette, 201150 Conversationshelp them integrate knowledge inthe context of the global and socialrelationships in which they liveand act.Think globallyOne needed framework is geo-graphical. We tend to offer studentsknowledge within discrete geo-graphical parameters (American lit-erature survey or the politics of theMiddle-East). However, in a global-ized world, students need to under-stand geographical scale—the con-current geographical layers in whichall issues and actions take place:local, regional, national, internation-al, global. The classic environmental-ist slogan, “Think Globally, ActLocally,” needs to be re-tooled for aglobal generation: “Think locally,regionally, nationally, internationally,and globally. Act accordingly.” In aDisaster/Response class I am cur-rently teaching, I can see students’views of events and the worldchange as they compare coverageof the Deepwater Horizon oil spillfrom local newspapers, the NewYork Times, and the BBC or, alter-natively, when they read a singlearticle with careful attention to theviewpoints of Alabama fishermen,EPA representatives, and the BPCEO. Being able to translate the impacts of issues andactions across levels of geographical scale is a key partof active, ethical citizenship in a globalized world.Another needed framework is knowledge of socialsectors. We live in a world made up of categories ofstakeholders: government, business, non-profits, faith-based organizations, academia, and the media. With amajor in political science or business or communications,we might graduate individuals with expertise in one ofthese areas, but to be globally literate, we have to under-stand the roles of these sectors and the tensions—andsynergies—among them. We need to make this frame-work visible to students. Even in a literature course, Imight identify how artistic production is implicatedacross sectors: governmental (ex. National Endowmentfor the Arts), business (corporate sponsorship of arts),non-profits (McArthur genius grants, Nobel prize), acade-mia (writers in residence), media (arts sections of news-papers). Students would gain a clearer sense of how theworld works—and how they might enter into it—byforegrounding this framework. In responding to Father Nicolás’s call to re-imagineJesuit higher education in today’s world, I would urge usto consider the frameworks that students need to under-stand a globalized world. The world has become too com-plicated for us to provide only a set of skills or disciplinaryapproaches and expect students to connect the dots. Wehave to offer them relational frameworks that help themorganize, understand, and engage the world around themif we hope to put them back in the saddle again. ■Leigh Ann Litwiller Berte is assistant professor of language and literature at Spring Hill College.Forum=2Conversations on Jesuit Higher Education, Vol. 40, Iss. 1 [2011], Art. 25http://epublications.marquette.edu/conversations/vol40/iss1/25

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