This seminar asks, “How can we more effectively equip our students to implement the key objectives of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)?” As the workplace evolves into a highly integrated, complex, and dynamic environment, professionals increasingly collaborate across national, cultural, and disciplinary boundaries, while engaging with a diverse array of public and private stakeholders. Over time, the field of sustainable development will increasingly demand our learners to acquire these skills before entering the workplace.
The seminar will focus on how we can best develop the intercultural competencies necessary for our learners to thrive in this global context, where success often hinges on the ability to work in international, multidisciplinary teams and navigate the complexities of various stakeholder interests. Currently, many students face significant challenges in adapting to these demands, and this seminar seeks to explore strategies to bridge that gap.
The speaker will discuss several findings in her recent co-edited book Intercultural Competence through Virtual Exchange as a Tool in Achieving the SDGs by Springer Nature Press. These findings are not limited to the Global North students but include learners from the Global South and the Navajo Nation, the largest indigenous tribal nations in North America, and accessibility inclusion for learners with disabilities. The book’s focus, which will be the highlight of the seminar, extends beyond creating sustainable solutions for interconnected human and natural communities globally; it seeks to prepare learners to collaboratively analyze and resolve complex problems outlined in the SDGs, transcending geopolitical boundaries.
As we prepare the next generation of leaders, global citizenship education will be pivotal. It is increasingly integrated into the mission statements and strategic goals of companies, non-profit organizations, and educational institutions. Embedding intercultural learning in formal education before students enter the workforce will be essential to this transition.
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Kelly Tzoumis, is Emerita Professor with via sapientiae distinction, at the School of Public Service at DePaul University in Chicago. She is a lecturer at Johns Hopkins University in the Whiting School of Professional Engineering. She earned her BS in distributed studies of chemistry, microbiology, and zoology from Iowa State University in 1985. She completed her MPA from Iowa State University with an emphasis in environmental policy and regulation in 1987. In 1992, she finished her PhD from Texas A&M University in public policy/public administration with a second major in American government and a third major in environmental policy. Before entering academia, she worked in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory, and Argonne National Laboratory. She also worked at the U.S. Department of Energy headquarters in Washington, D.C. Her work focused on the remediation and cleanup of the legacy of nuclear weapons and other toxic chemicals. She was a Superfund program manager and external liaison for the U.S. Department of Energy. She served as an IPA Congressional Fellow for the US Department of Energy to former Senator Paul Simon, where she wrote policy briefs on environmental and science policy on Capitol Hill. Professor Tzoumis was the Fulbright Distinguished Chair Scholar recipient in Environmental Studies in 2003 at the Politecnico di Torino. In 2022, she was a research scholar in Greece and Italy. She has written three books, and numerous articles in the field of environmental policy.
Her current research work is focused on applying the tools of social network analysis, fuzzy cognitive mapping, and structural equation modeling. Her skills in data science are being applied to complex policy interactions in renewable energies by mapping the system of actors, the flow of information, and misinformation within these policy domains. She is also working on the causal modeling of renewable energy adoption and diffusion by indigenous and marginalized communities as compared to others.