Professor Ş. İlgü Özler Promotes Global Engagement Program at United Nations Day

Ş. İlgü Özler, professor of political science and international relations, represented SUNY New Paltz at the United Nations Academic Impact organized event Higher Education and Multilateralism: Academia Responding to Global Challenges, held in observance of United Nations Day on October 24, 2022.

The UN Academic Impact was created in 2010 to create a path for universities to introduce the UN’s mission to campuses. The panel of speakers reviewed academia’s role in combating global challenges including political conflicts, climate change and ongoing human rights issues with discussion centered around the relationship between universities and the UN. Özler discussed SUNY New Paltz’s direct engagement with the UN through the United Nations Semester class and the SUNY Global Engagement Program, which brings students to New York City to participate in internships and learn firsthand about how the UN operates. Through this experiential semester in NYC, students learn how they can make a difference in the world.

Additional examples of multilateralism within the university include the incorporation of UN Sustainable Development Goals into the curriculum of various departments across the New Paltz campus and community engagement via the creation of and continued work with the New Paltz chapter of the United Nations Association. Other panel speakers included representatives from the New School, Seton Hall, Columbia University and CUNY.

Ozler completed a Fulbright residency at Autonomous University in Madrid during the Spring 2022 semester. She taught two upper division undergraduate classes in international Affairs and researched the relationship between social movement organizations and international non-government organizations working towards the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Özler  was also recently honored as a Charles E. Scheidt Faculty Fellow in Atrocity Prevention at Binghamton University’s Institute for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention (I-GMAP). Fellows are nominated by their peers and chosen from any discipline. Fellows participate in a cohort where they learn to observe and identify the risks for violence and atrocities and to incorporate these into their curriculum. The program runs from September 2022 through April 2023, during which time fellows attend an online asynchronous class and are offered resources to assist them with the process of integrating prevention techniques into their coursework. The fellowship culminates in the presentation of a syllabus for an updated course that utilizes techniques to address the prevention of genocide and other atrocities at the international Frontiers of Prevention conference to be held in the spring of 2023 on the SUNY Binghamton campus.