Cultural Corner
The world is truly flat. Every day, communicates that we live, study, work and play in a global environment. A recent study by Global Detroit http://neweconomyinitiative.cfsem.org/resources/research-library/global-detroit-study reports that America’s foreign born population has grown more than 250 percent to 1 million in 2007. This does not include foreign nationals who are studying and living temporarily in the U.S.
Because of Michigan’s rich diversity, and WSU’s international recognition as a top urban research institution, WSU has over 2,800 international students and scholars from 80 countries.
Beyond WSU’s rich and diverse learning community is a wider community made up of various ethnicities and cultures. We owe it to our students, to ourselves and to our future to see ourselves as citizens of a broader world.
How would you answer the following questions true or false?
- The world is essentially a global village.
- The world would be a better place if everybody behaved like the people in my country.
- One could live in any country in the world, if one were honest and well-intentional.
- Business is business in any country.
- Children’s upbringing at home and their lives in school and later in the workplace are unrelated.
- National cultures will be a thing of the past fifty years from now and beyond.[1]
In addition to the training currently offered, we are in the process of working collaboratively across campus to develop a variety of workshops to address all areas including culture specific workshops.
[1]Hofstede, Gert Jan, Pedersen, Paul B., and Hofstede, Geert. Exploring Culture: Exercises, Stories and Synthetic Cultures. Boston: Intercultural Press, 2001.