U.N. Foundation adviser visits UCF

Gillian Sorensen, a senior adviser for the United Nations Foundation and former U.N. assistant secretary-general, challenged UCF students and faculty to "think globally" during a presentation in the Pegasus Ballroom of the Student Union on Tuesday.

The presentation, titled "Seeing Beyond Borders: Developing a World View," began at 3 p.m. and included a 45-minute speech followed by a 20-minute question-and-answer session with students.

More than 200 people filled the room as topics ranging from current projects and goals of the U.N. to the organization's "new era of engagement" with the Obama administration were discussed.

Sorensen said remembering that "we, [in the United States], are the fortunate ones" should cause us to reach out to other nations and make a global connection with everything we do.

"We have education, we have safety, we have a roof over our heads and a good meal to eat this evening," she said. "We have opportunity, we have language skills, we have a voice, we can vote, we can speak up and speak out. Then the question is, ‘What do we do with that extraordinary gift?'"

According to Sorensen, we can use our businesses and other endeavors to "do good and do well at the same time."

Freshman Farah Allam, a cinema studies major, said this was her favorite part of the presentation.

"I liked the broadness of the topic," she said. "I liked how she connected the enormous topic with specific fields."

Junior political science major Marco Funk, who is a member of the Model U.N. club at UCF, said he liked Sorensen's explanation for what many have perceived as failures of the U.N.

"What I really liked is how she said that the U.N. is nothing but the sum of its members, because in effect, that's what it is," Funk said. "You cannot shove the fault of everything on the U.N.'s shoulders because it really is the members who make or break the U.N."

Funk also said he agreed with Sorensen's view that, in some cases, the U.N.'s failures should be blamed on the United States.

"I think that it is sad that the U.S. has, in my opinion, disregarded the U.N.," he said.

"Hopefully with the new president we will see a change."

According to Sorensen, over the last 15 years, one serious problem with the U.S.-U.N. relationship has been the constantly changing position and ambivalence of the U.S. toward the organization.

"One day it would support and praise the U.N., the next day it would give it the back of the hand without realizing that if you give the U.N. the back of the hand, you are in fact giving the world the back of the hand," Sorensen said.

However, Sorensen said "there has been a dramatic turnabout in the U.S. relationship to the United Nations" over the last few months. She said the Obama administration values multilateral diplomacy and will use this "to [its] maximum."

She also said President Obama will spend several days at the U.N. headquarters next week.

"I can tell you that people are quietly happy to know that the United States is back," she said.

Julie Colombino, president of the greater Orlando chapter of the United Nations Association, said she used to get negative feedback from local residents about the U.S.'s absence from the U.N.'s Human Rights Council and American soldiers' involvement with torture.

She said she hopes those issues are in the past now that the U.S. sits on the Human Rights Council and America, as a country, has made a commitment to never violate the Geneva Conventions, which denounce torture, again.

"I like what [Sorensen] said about ‘what's good for others is good for us' because that's really true," Colombino said. "I'm definitely an anti-torture girl. I don't see how anybody could benefit from that."

According to Colombino, half of the 200 members of the local chapter of the UNA are UCF and Rollins College students. Recently, those students have been helping put together educational packets for refugee families who aren't sure how to clean mildew growing in their homes. They don't know how to handle the situation because they've never had running water, Colombino said.

She also said she had three students approach her after the presentation who were refugees.

"There was one from Sierra Leone, one from Colombia and one from Cuba," she said.
In her speech, Sorensen encouraged students to get to know the "many foreign students who have stories to tell."

"Let us not be indifferent to those stories," she said. "Let us not take for granted the extraordinary gift, the extraordinary privilege, that we enjoy living in this safe society full of opportunities."