Global awareness key to brighter future, speaker says

The opportunity and need for Americans to engage globally has never been greater, E.N. Thompson Forum speaker Colin G. Campbell said on Tuesday at the Lied Center for Performing Arts.


The world is increasingly more interwoven, said Campbell, the chairman and president of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. A generation ago, it would have been "unthinkable" that a Florida family defaulting on a home payment could further a bank failure in Iceland.

But nowadays it's strange to think we didn't realize the possibility earlier, he told the crowd at the Lied Center for Performing Arts.


Technology has helped link nations and "destroy distance," Campbell said. The ability to spread and gather information has "never been greater," leaving Americans with a unique chance to become effective "global citizens."

These "citizens" are aware of the practices, issues and cultures of the world, he said. Such awareness is needed to tackle global concerns such as terrorism, nuclear war, infectious diseases, climate change and the environment.

Collaboration is important for combating these worldwide problems, because a global crisis can't be fixed by "national tools." But such teamwork is sometimes thwarted by people's push for a more domestic focus, Campbell said.

It's tough to think about the well-being of another country when the United States is in trouble, admitted Mykel Gossard, a a freshman architecture major who attended the lecture. But she, like Campbell, said Americans need to pay attention to economic conditions elsewhere.

Like knowledge of the revolution deepens American citizenship, understanding and appreciating the viewpoints of those "loyal to a different flag" strengthens global citizenship.

And engagement with cultures outside of U.S. borders wouldn't come at the expense of American cultural identities, Campbell emphasized. It would actually reinforce them, he said.

teresalostroh@dailynebraskan.com