After joining the University Global Coalition, UCA hosted its first Sustainable Development Goals Week on March 4-8, encouraging students and faculty to get involved on an international level.

Phillip Bailey, associate vice president for Global Learning and Engagement, said UCA joined the UGC on Feb. 15.

“Their goal, in a short paraphrase, is to work together and work with the United Nations to promote the sustainable development goals for the betterment of humanity,” Bailey said. “You can’t solve any important problems in the 21st century without collaborating with people who aren’t the same color as you, don’t speak the same language, and live 2,000 or 3,000 miles away. We’ve got to get together and work on the big things like climate change and pollution.”

There were 17 sustainable development goals adopted by United Nations Members in 2015, hoping to achieve them by 2030. These goals include no poverty, climate action and quality education. 

Riva Brown, global learning specialist and associate professor of public relations, has been working on integrating these goals on campus for the past few semesters. 

Brown said she wanted to create a panel for faculty, encouraging them to implement SDGs in the classroom. However, after a lot of work, it became more than just that. 

“I woke up one morning and I thought, you know, we need to do more, we need to have more, but I needed to connect it to something larger than just UCA. I started Googling and that’s when I found out about the University Global Coalition, which has an official SDG Action and Awareness Week,” she said.

Bailey said for UCA to become an official member of UGC, the university had to complete an application.

“We had to have the provost [Patricia Poulter] make the application at her level,” he said. “So she asked the president [Houston Davis] and he said it was a very worthy endeavor.” 

Bailey said he and Brown have committed to incorporating the SDGs in everything they do at the Center for Global Learning and Engagement. 

“Almost anything you can do to promote the fact that we live and work in a global community, even in Conway — it relates to the sustainable development goals,” Bailey said. “If you’re looking for peace and justice, if you’re looking for helping others through service, we can do that through an education abroad program. We can do that through individual student exchange. We can do that through all of our programs.”

Brown said she relied heavily on the campus community to collaborate on the various SDG Awareness and Action Week events. 

“I talked to Lesley Graybeal [director of experiential and community-engaged learning], and Party at the Polls was already scheduled. It happened to be March 5, so that was perfect.”

Brown partnered with the Syrian Emergency Task Force for the week’s opening event.

On March 4, Celine Kassem, director of media for SETF, spoke to UCA about creating awareness content for global audiences and how students can create change as well.

“We were trying to figure all of that out because International Women’s Day also falls within that week,” Brown said. “So we were originally thanking her for that, if we could get her here because she lives in Qatar — that’s a long way. We had to work on getting her here, finding the funds for that and how it would all work.” 

After UCA had officially become a member of UGC, Brown said she knew she needed more events to flesh out the week.

Brown said she went to a Civic Engagement meeting to find more campus organizations. 

“I went to the meeting with my sheet of paper with the 17 goals, and I was like, ‘I need help. Can somebody do something? I got these days to fill up,’” she said.

Brown said students from RSOs such as the Feminist Union and Circle K volunteered to host SDG events.

Brown said the theme for the week was, “Catalysts for Change: Campus Champions for the Global Goals.”

Bailey said he looked forward to many of the events put on for the SDGs week, including Kassem’s keynote address, the faculty panel and a public lecture by Jin Jiang, the Yeung Family Distinguished Visiting Professor at Johns Hopkins University.

“Those faculty members are gonna listen to three other faculty members, and they’re gonna talk about how they’ve integrated the SDGs already into their classes,” Bailey said. “We’re training teachers, raising visibility and promoting bringing these to the forefront of the syllabus.”

He said, “I’m officially proud of everything that we’re doing. But those three particular activities —  two public lectures, we’re bringing people to central Arkansas and then the faculty training. Those to me are very, very impactful.”

More information about the Center for Global Learning and Engagement’s implementation of SDGs on campus and within the Conway community can be found at uca.edu/global-learning/.