Hello, GSP Alumnx!
Welcome to the End-of-Fall 2024 Alumnx Newsletter! We're excited to provide you with highlights from the fall term, spotlights on alumnx around the world, and exciting program updates. As our GSP Alumnx Network grows every year, we hope this newsletter will serve to keep you in touch with GSP's expanding alumnx community.
GSP 15th Anniversary
We are delighted to be celebrating our 15th anniversary as a program this year! Over the last 15 years, we have grown as a community, adopted new traditions, and learned from one another as we've sought to embrace diverse perspectives, cultures, and experiences.
GSP had just 32 students in the first year. This semester, we have 82 first-year members, 4 General Members, and 36 student leaders serving as Residential Advisors, Collaborative Group Leaders, Dialogue Facilitators, and Special Project Leads.
In November, we excitedly welcomed community members past and present to Ann Arbor to celebrate 15 years of GSP with a special banquet and our annual Culture Show! Thank you to all who attended, performed, and took part in planning this wonderful event (shoutout to our Signature Event Leads).
Check out some photo highlights from our 15th Anniversary Celebration below.
Alumnx Spotlights
A few of our GSP alumnx share updates and meaningful GSP memories below. We enjoy featuring several members of our alumnx community each semester; Please look out for an email in the first few months of 2025 if you are interested in being featured in our Alumnx Newsletter next semester!
Allan Zhang '13
Allan was a member of the first ever class of GSP students when the program started in 2009. After graduating from the University of Michigan with a BBA/BS in Economics, he worked in finance for 8 years and went on to earn his MBA from Yale University, and now works in renewable energy banking in New York City. Allan remains in touch with several friends from GSP, and he recently joined us for the 15th Anniversary Culture Show and Celebration.
Allan looks back fondly on his time in GSP: "I've never lived in a multicultural community before coming to the US to attend school at UMich. The GSP community taught me to withhold my biases and stay open-minded to different ideas and cultures. It has a profound impact on me both at work and in my MBA program."
Sara Gleason '23
Sara was a student in GSP from 2022-2023 and graduated from Michigan with a BA in International Studies and Spanish. She was a Collaborative Group Intern with Inkululeko and then served as both a Dialogue Facilitator and the Vice President of the GSP Advisory Council during her second year in the program. Since graduating from Michigan, Sara has worked as an English Teaching Assistant through the Fulbright program in Brazil. She plans to pursue a MA in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages with the goal of working with newcomer students in the future.
Sara reflects on her time in GSP, writing that her time in the program inspired her "to work in a diverse workplace and create a supportive community." She writes of the values she learned in GSP: "I currently live abroad and interact daily with people from different backgrounds and cultures. When I return to the US I will be working in a newcomer classroom with refugees and immigrant children. I will practice these values everyday."
Gregory Kohler '13
Gregory was a student in GSP during 2012 and graduated from Michigan with a BBA the following year. He currently works as an Agriculture Expert with the Climate and Clean Air Coalition as a part of the UN Environment Programme, but he has experience working in business, cultural anthropology, international development, and climate policy as well. While in GSP, Gregory learned about "how different cultural and social influences shape our perspective of the people and events around us."
Gregory writes of how the values he learned in GSP have informed the current work he is doing with the UN: "I work on international climate mitigation advocacy and implementation in the agricultural sector, which requires cross cultural dialogue and understanding unique perspectives of different communities (i.e. policymakers, livestock keepers, farmers, and consumers)."
Student Spotlights
ALA 470: Organizing for Global Social Justice is now required for 2nd-year GSP General Members and by the 3rd year for Peer Facilitators and Special Project Leads. Their primary assignment is to complete a semester-long Community Organizing Group Project.
This fall, 16 students arranged themselves into three groups to organize an intervention addressing global systems of injustice.
One group raised over $150 for the Shelter Association of Washtenaw County (SAWC).
Another group facilitated a dialogue on the right to education, paired with an optional petition-signing advocating the READ Reauthorization Act of 2023.
The third group arranged a day trip to Detroit, visiting the Charles H. Wright Museum of African-American history and the Detroit People's Food Co-op.
Read more about the ALA 470 students' Community Organizing Group Projects on the GSP Blog!
Global Citizenship in an Age of Democratic Peril
On Saturday, October 19th, GSP welcomed Dr. Saladin Ambar to deliver the keynote address for GSP's 8th annual Global Citizenship in Practice event (GCIP). Dr. Saladin Ambar is Professor of Political Science and Senior Scholar at the Center on the American Governor at Rutgers University’s Eagleton Institute of Politics. He is the award-winning author of books including Stars and Shadows: The Politics of Interracial Friendship from Jefferson to Obama (Oxford University Press, 2022) and Malcolm X at Oxford Union: Racial Politics in a Global Era (Oxford University Press 2014). He is Co-Director of the Democracy Committee for the New Jersey Institute for Racial Justice’s Reparations Council and is presently working as a Scholarly Advisor for the Lincoln Presidential Foundation. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, New York Daily News, Politico, NPR, Newsweek, and The Root, among other outlets.
Dr. Ambar's visit included visits to ALA210, ALA470, UC154, and ALA102 discussing various topics including building alliances across difference, reparations and social change, and challenges to community building. Additionally, he led a dialogue with students about faith identities on campus and in our democracy, had a meal with GSP students, and hosted a talk discussing his book: Stars and Shadows: The Politics of Interracial Friendship from Jefferson to Obama. A video recording of Dr. Ambar's GCIP address is coming soon!
Third-year GSP student, Sara Hollingshead, served as the student keynote speaker at this year's GCIP. Sara has served as a CG and Dialogue Facilitator in GSP. Sara studied International Studies and Sociocultural Anthropology. On campus, she was a Transfer Student Mentor for Transfer Connections and a Transfer Bridge Fellowship Coordinator at optiMize. She has also served as a Conversation Circles Facilitator for the English Language Institute.
Off campus, Sara was a member of Women of Color Advancing Peace, Security, and Conflict Transformation and also a member of the Japanese-American Citizens League Detroit Chapter. In addition, she was selected as one of about 20 young professionals from around the world to participate in the Hiroshima-ICAN Academy to learn about nuclear disarmament and abolition in Hiroshima this past November.
Sara spoke about her grandmother, a survivor of the World War II Hiroshima bombing and preventing nuclear warfare as a crucial element of global citizenship. Sara was a commencement speaker for the winter 2024 graduates. Watch her speech here. Sara was just named as a 2025 Pipeline Fellow by Women of Color Advancing Peace, Security and Conflict Transformation!
Fall 2024 Highlights
This semester, we have had a wide array of opportunities for community engagement, globally focused learning, and cultural celebration here in Ann Arbor! Since August, the Residential Advisors have planned 11 events, the Special Project Leads have hosted 9 activities, the Global Scholars Student Organization has met 18 times, and Nita and the Chai Chatter Ambassadors have hosted 15 Chai Chatters as well. We have also had the opportunity to welcome Dr. Saladin Ambar as the keynote speaker for our annual Global Citizenship in Practice event and to see our GSP Peace Flag hanging at the United Nations. Learn more about some of these events and initiatives below.
Residential Advisors
This semester, our GSP RAs have done everything they can to create a safe, fun, and enriching environment within the GSP residence halls at North Quad. They have engaged with students by offering student-centered activities, including the annual cider mill trip, taking students to paint the rock, communal dinners, study nights, and more!
Holiday and Tradition Leads
This semester, our Holiday and Tradition Leads have hosted a variety of events related to different cultural celebrations, including creating altars for Diwali and Dia de los Muertos, hosting a Halloween movie night and Friendsgiving Chai Chatter event, making cookies for the holidays, and more!
Signature Event Leads
This semester, our Signature Event Leads hosted a fun game day tailgate in addition to planning the annual Culture Show and the 15th Anniversary Celebration. The event featured games, food, and fun with GSPeeps! After the tailgate, the Wolverines beat Northwestern at football 50-6.
Global Scholars Student Organization (GSSO)
This semester, the Global Scholars Student Organization officially got up and running. GSSO was developed out of the previous Global Scholars Program Student Organization (GSPSO).
The Global Scholars Student Organization (GSSO) is an opt-in student organization available to current Global Scholars Program members. It organizes student member activities rooted in GSP's mission and values (below) and provides valuable student perspectives to guide the program forward. GSSO serves as a forum and site for student leadership independent from GSP.
The group has held weekly club meetings, hosted an Indigenous Heritage Month Movie Night, run a boba fundraiser in partnership with the Arab Student Association and the Iraqi American Union, and more!
GSP Peace Flags at the UN!
You may remember last year’s GCIP speaker Runa Ray, founder of Fashioning for Social Environmental Justice. She invited GSP members to participate in the Peace Flag project. GSP members painted their own peace flags, which Runa wove into large tapestries with other handmade peace flags from around the world.
The peace flag project is endorsed by the UN SDG Action Campaign and the peace flags were displayed at the United Nations Headquarters in October 2024. Fashioning for Social Environmental Justice became one of our new Global Engagement Project partners this year with Runa as the CG’s project supervisor.
Ways to Give Back to GSP
Many alumnx have asked how they can support the GSP community. Here are some simple ways you can give back:
- Update or confirm your contact information with GSP. This form will also prompt you to share what kinds of alum events you'd like to see in the future.
- Share photos with us, either from your time in the program or of your post-grad activities! Not only do we love to hear from you, this helps us highlight our community members' enriching experiences of past and present for prospective students and supporters on social media.
- Email as a brief testimonial describing what GSP meant to you during and/or after your time at U-M. Help us demonstrate the value and impact of GSP in as little as 1 sentence, or more if you'd like!
- Donate to the Global Scholars Program Strategic Fund, which supports student leadership development and engaged learning opportunities for Global Scholars. In fact, this fund supported ALA 470 students' community organizing projects!
Join GSP on LinkedIn
Please request access to our revived GSP LinkedIn Group where our community shares opportunities for professional development, GSP program updates, and personal achievements in global awareness and travel. We would like to encourage you to ask your GSP friends to join the group if they have not already! Additionally, you can click on the icons below to follow us on other social media platforms or view the GSP Website.
