Winter 2004

Bridging Cultures

Meeting with school children, community groups, and fellow students, international ambassadors help bring the world to Wooster

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Interpreting politics

Ceramic boat from Bangladesh

Zareef Huda ’05 wants people to understand that his country, Bangladesh, is more than just a place hit by floods. An economics major, he explains the microcredit system developed in Bangladesh to enable citizens to start small businesses. He has spoken to classes on campus as well as in an elementary school and at a Wooster Lions Club meeting.

Do audience members sometimes ask stupid questions about his country?

"People here are quite educated, or at least polite enough or maybe scared enough not to ask silly questions," Huda says.

Many of the presentations feature light topics such as everyday life, traditions, and natural attractions. Sarr tells her audiences that crocodiles, hippos, and hyenas are common in The Gambia. Millán-Calhoun demonstrates how to make an altar to a deceased relative for a Mexican Day of the Dead celebration.

But not every presentation is warm and fuzzy.

"In one class a professor wanted me to solve the Middle East crisis in two minutes," remembers Elina Ojanen ’04 of Israel. Because her homeland is in the news so often, Ojanen knows that her audiences will ask about Israel’s volatile political situation. And questions like whether she ever speaks to Palestinians give her the opportunity to bring headlines into perspective.

"I tell them that I’m just a citizen of Israel, and here is how I see it. The political part of being an ambassador does interest me."

Ojanen holds dual citizenship in Israel, her mother’s native country, and Finland, her father’s homeland. At the Ojanen home in Jerusalem, her parents converse in English, the language her father commonly used in his career with the United Nations. Ojanen and her older brother learned English as children but also speak and write Hebrew and Finnish.

Ojanen’s artifacts include a menorah for discussion about her Jewish faith and dolls dressed in traditional Yemenite clothing. "Israel is a young country and we are very westernized," she says. Traditional clothing worn in Israel reaches back into the cultures of European countries and of Yemen, the birthplace of her grandmother.

Traditional clothing is a topic that all ambassadors embrace, often by inviting audience members to dress in items the ambassadors have brought from home. Sarr’s rural sociology class at ATI was interested to learn that in one Gambian tribe, bigger is better. Being hefty is the norm, and those who aren’t fortunate enough to pack on the pounds dress in loose, flowing robes to appear larger. One such outfit in Sarr’s traveling wardrobe has wide vertical stripes in white, pink, and brown, making the wearer look like a slab of Neapolitan ice cream.

Ambassadors make frequent on-campus presentations, both to classes and to student groups. Hundreds more Wooster students get a taste – literally – of other lands during International Week each fall. The celebration begins with a Lowry Center program featuring the cultures of Wooster’s 120 international students. It was standing-room-only this year for an evening of global music, dance, fashion shows, and other demonstrations. Throughout the week, foods from the ambassadors’ countries are included among Lowry Center’s meal options.

Mutual benefits

To apply, international students must make a presentation about their home country and write an essay on why they would like to become an ambassador. The selection committee looks for students who have ideas and opinions as well as a presence when speaking. In exchange for free presentations on a wide range of international topics, the ambassadors gain stronger public speaking skills and often a better understanding of their home countries.

Ambassadors are chosen in the spring for the following academic year. Each receives a $1,500 stipend to conduct summer research on his or her homeland, from its history and geography to politics, religion, traditions, and cuisine.

As applications opened for ambassadors to serve during the 2004-05 academic year, administrators were assessing the costs and benefits of the program as well as the long-term options.

"The program enriches the international experience we want students to have," says Iain Crawford, vice president for academic affairs. Administrators know of no other academic institution that offers a program like the ambassadors and consider the effort to be "distinctively Wooster."

Crawford says funds from the three-year McGregor grant may remain at the end of the grant cycle in 2005 and might be carried forward to help continue the program. The College is examining other possible funding options.

Christabel Dadzie ’04 of Ghana, an ambassador in 2002, explained her enthusiasm for the program during a regional conference of international educators in Akron this fall.

"Being an ambassador was a great way to share my culture with the college and the community," Dadzie says. "It was a way to reach more than just roommates and college friends. The ambassador program captures bigger audiences.

"I learned more about my own country, and in doing the summer research I had the experience of being a ‘tourist’ there," she says. "Being an ambassador helped me to find my place in Wooster."

Melody Snure is a former journalist now working as executive director of Gault Family Learning Center, a nonprofit organization in partnership with The College of Wooster.

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