Office links students to experts

Diplomats, ambassadors, foreign policy experts and world-renowned journalists are not the kind of people students get to meet every day. At UCF, though, students have the opportunity to meet unique and accomplished professionals just about every week.

The UCF Global Perspectives Office, one of the largest international affairs programs of its kind in the U.S., makes it possible.

Located in Howards Phillips Hall, the Office of the Special Assistant to the President for Global Perspectives is responsible for connecting UCF to the rest of the world. Established in 2001 by UCF President John Hitt, the office administers scholarships, facilitates research through several topic-specific initiatives, advises the president on international issues, publishes "Worldviews for the 21st Century," a monograph series and provides a number of internship and fellowship opportunities.

It also brings prominent guest speakers to UCF from all over the world. Past speakers include Desmond Tutu, the former archbishop of Cape Town; Lech Walesa, former president of Poland; and award-winning journalist Thomas Friedman.

John Bersia, director of the Global Perspectives Office, said the program draws more national and international attention with each passing year.

"UCF is unquestionably becoming a more important stop for specialists in a variety of international fields," he said.

According to Bersia, leading experts are just as eager to come to UCF as the Global Perspectives Office is to host them.

Bersia himself is a notable figure in the field of international relations.
A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, he was invited by Hitt in 2001 to serve as the founding director of the Global Perspectives Office.

"My main field of study had always been international affairs — whether I was in journalism, government or private sector consulting — so it (becoming Director of Global Perspectives) was a natural progression," he said.

Top UCF students in any major have several opportunities to follow in Bersia's footsteps.
According to the Global Perspectives Office website, dedicated undergraduate students interested in international affairs can apply for various merit-based scholarships, unpaid internships and paid fellowships within the office.

Interns are expected to work on a research paper during the semester and assist with Global Perspectives event staffing. Similar in scope to internships, fellowships have a greater time commitment and are topic-specific. 

Four fellowships are offered each semester: the Lawrence J. Chastang Global Fellowship Program, the India Program Fellowship, the Sibille H. Pritchard Global Peace Fellowship and the China-Taiwan Fellowship.

Each program is associated with one of the Global Perspectives Office's key areas of study: globalization, peace studies and Asian studies.

Ariel Dansky, a senior political science major, is currently a Global Peace Fellow with the office.

"My job is to conduct research in the area of peace studies," Dansky said. "I chose to do my research project on sectarian violence in the Middle East, for example between Sunni and Shia Muslims as well as U.S. involvement."

Staffing the multitude of guest speaker panels that the Global Perspectives Office holds often helps interns and fellows with their research.

Access to experts that have real life experience in dealing with some of the world's major issues has proved to be a valuable resource for students that would otherwise have to rely solely on published material.

Paula Allen, a documentary photographer who travels around the world to shed light on areas she feels don't get enough media coverage, was Dansky's favorite speaker to date.

"We who study international relations, we study it from books, we study it from films, we study it from lectures, but a big part that many of us miss is actually going there and being in the field and talking to people who are living these conflicts," Dansky said.

In Dansky's opinion, what Allen does is a big, integral part of the field.

Allen's visit came earlier this year as one of many speaker events moderated around the Global Perspectives Office's primary theme for 2009-10: The Environment, Energy and National/Global Security.

Every year, in addition to a primary theme, the office also embraces a number of secondary themes in conjunction with its research focus areas.

These include diplomacy, human rights and terrorism studies.

In the future, new themes and focus areas will be added to the list.

Dansky said she looks forward to what's ahead.

"I'm absolutely going to try to continue my research with the office into the fall semester, which will be my last at UCF," she said. "It sounds corny, but it really has broadened my perspectives a great deal."