global stewardship 8
Since the University’s earliest days as a mission school in the United States, the world has been our classroom. Today, UD students learn, lead and serve around the world through fellowships, scholarships, service programs, study abroad programs or cultural immersions. Donor support makes international experience possible for dozens of students each year — and each experience is simply transformational. History professor Julius Amin has led students on cultural immersion trips to Cameroon every summer for the past 17 years. He sees the difference a global education makes in students. The experience brings wisdom; it brings growth. "Students are changed forever because they look at life through the lens of someone else’s eyes,” said Amin. Such was the case for senior early childhood education major Beth Golonka of Columbus, Ohio, who spent the summer of 2013 in the southern African nation of Zambia with 10 other students. “It was educational, cultural and relational,” said Golonka. She taught 140 second-graders lined up on crowded benches in a single classroom, volunteered in the hospital’s malnutrition ward and held a religion class for sixth-graders — she taught them about Mary. Funding from donors covered a portion of the cost. This left students to do individual fundraising to cover the rest of their expenses — about $4,500 each. And, in true Flyer fashion, they didn’t stop there.