Beginning in the spring of 2017, Pace sophomores applied for the Emerging Leaders program. This program, a part of the Isdell Center for Global Leadership, allows students to focus on one area of study and formulate a detailed research question. Students are able to supplement what they learn in school with something that interests them. “The goal is to take a high school curriculum and add a personal lens to it,” said ICGL Director Trish Anderson.
Before starting the program, each student had to select one of five areas of study. The options were Science/Technology, Arts/Culture, Social Entrepreneurship/Business, Service/Sustainability and Public Policy/International Relations. Within each area of study, students have the ability to take it in any direction that they want, for the most part. “I’m doing arts and culture, but I’m really interested in how different countries market to different genders,” said junior Annabelle Critz. She hopes to study common gender stereotypes, and wants to do this by looking at different advertisements.
Junior Veronica Sandoval is involved in the Social Entrepreneurship and Business track, and she is beginning her study of international youth fashion. “My main goal is to encourage girls to embrace their culture and roots from a young age through fashion,” said Sandoval. She hopes to study different ethnic designs in the fashion world, and will use her international background as inspiration.
At the end of last school year, students began to work on general questions relating to their research question. In order to get a general understanding of the goal of the program, students watched the IMAX film “Dream Big.” The goal was to teach students outside-of-the-box thinking. This year, however, the goal of Anderson and Associate ICGL Director Zeena Lattouf is to pair each student with a faculty member and someone outside of Pace to help facilitate the research. Students will do most of the actual research this year as opposed to their senior year, when they will hopefully spend their time compiling the information into a presentation.
Through this program, students are expected to hone their leadership skills. At the end of their senior year, students will share the information they obtained in various ways to people in the community, such as the student body or the Board of Trustees. While this could be through a traditional PowerPoint, the presentation could come in many different forms. In addition, throughout their research, students are encouraged to think about their research questions not only regionally, but globally.