Uni students take the initiative to investigate real-world problems

By Emma Anselin
Gargoyle assistant editor
Posted Thursday, Feb. 9, 2006, The OG, news

The hallways of Uni High are deserted; the desks are emptied; the chalkboards are blank. It's a Monday evening, and the average student has long since said farewell to the gargoyles and escaped the grasps of the classroom.

Only one group of students, not so average, dares to remain in the building, huddled over luminescent screens in the computer lab. Their latest project: investigating the best location for the American office of a Chinese construction company.

These students are members of Uni's most recent organization: the Global Studies Initiative (GSI). GSI was founded by English teacher Adele Suslick as well as seniors Angelina Liang, Emma Marshak, Hannah Snyder, and Annie Fehrenbacher, the last remaining Uni students to have worked with the Illinois International Career Academy (ICA), a statewide institute dedicated to preparing high school students for careers in foreign policy.

ICA recently lost state funding, and has since suffered from disintegrated communication and participation. By working to follow the basic concepts and goals of ICA, the members of GSI hope to keep this significant program's tradition alive.

ICA was established in 2000 by former Illinois Gov. George Ryan in an effort to inform high school students about international business and politics.

The cornerstone of ICA was a concept known as problem-based learning, an educational method that involves investigating and planning solutions to issues in the real world, often related to international affairs. Uni students studied a number of different topics, ranging from the economic and cultural implications of Japanese inflation to the regulation of African conflict diamonds.

The role of teachers in this system was merely to guide students through the learning process, not to directly participate. Suslick, the main Uni faculty member involved with ICA, ensured that Uni members kept to a schedule of gathering information and answering questions related to the international issue.

“Students delivered their findings to me every Monday evening in written and oral format,” says Suslick. “Their assignment for the next week then evolved from the questions that arose from that nights presentation.”

ICA members met regularly for weekend summits at one of 12 schools as well as two-week summer camps at Illinois Math and Science Academy (IMSA) in Aurora to present on their research projects. Their presentations were analyzed and evaluated under the same academic criteria used by professionals in related fields.

“Over and over again I have seen students walk away from a completed project feeling empowered, feeling like what they said mattered, feeling like they had made a difference,” says Suslick.

Students who participated in all ICA activities also received certificates of achievement and qualified to study abroad.

After state funding for ICA was cut, many schools could not continue the program because student advisers lost their paychecks. Weekend summits, summer sessions at IMSA, and foreign trips were halted. Suslick, who was very passionate about the organization, offered to continue coaching students for free.

“I spoke with my students as soon as I found out that state funding had been cut,” says Suslick. “No one wanted to abandon the program. They wanted to continue studying global issues, and they wanted to retain the problem-based nature of the program. The challenge for me was to find significant problems for them to work on and a meaningful way to showcase their effort.”

Thus GSI was formed, allowing the principles of ICA to survive and continue. At Monday evening meetings, GSI follows the basic process of ICA, working through international problems by way of large group discussions, individual research, and the assignment of homework. The current senior members use their previous ICA experience to provide guidance for younger students.

“By the time these seniors have graduated, the rest of us in GSI should have a fairly good idea of what's going on, as well as some experience,” says sophomore Micah Berman, who first discovered the program while video-taping an ICA presentation last spring. “The program caught my attention because of the level of respect students had for the work they were doing, and the level of respect that they received in return.”

Berman was especially drawn to the opportunity to investigate real-world issues, as well as the involvement of technology and the relative freedom with which students could define their own system of research.

“The beauty of the problem-based learning scheme on which GSI operates is that there doesn't have to be a ‘supposed to' and the program's implementation can change to suit the problem,” says Berman.

GSI is currently operating without any specific funding. In the spring of 2005, a group of Uni students met with the board members of the Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) to solicit funding for ICA. Though the ICA infrastructure has now disintegrated, Suslick considers ADM a possible future option for GSI financial support. ADM has currently offered to provide real-world problems for Uni students to investigate and present, thus supporting and preserving the problem-based learning aspect.

Nevertheless, though GSI was formed within the mold of ICA, members of the organization must also find a way to adapt the statewide organization to the small Uni community. The members of GSI are currently preparing a presentation for the Uni curriculum committee, which will explain the basic goals of GSI and seek course credits for participating students.

In planning the presentation, GSI members have had to discuss and agree upon a mission statement, a process for selecting new students, sources of funding, and a model for what the program will look like in the future. This model may include weekly meetings, bi-annual presentations to companies or universities, and trips abroad. GSI hopes to travel to China this summer, in relation to their current project on a Chinese construction company.

“A person must be globally aware in order to function in todays world,” says Suslick. “GSI promotes cultural literacy in a way that students find particularly compelling.”

Student members of GSI have continued to put forth time and effort to make this organization a significant and lasting component of the Uni community, thus revealing a strong degree of dedication to investigating the real world and expanding international horizons.

Suslick concludes, “GSI exists because Uni students want to learn more about other cultures and to break down cultural barriers.”