Talk Embraces Peace, Love and Global Learning

Laura Montgomery, Westmont professor of anthropology, will discuss “The Global Imperative and Moral Education: Peace and Love or Something Else?” at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 13, at the University Club, 1332 Santa Barbara Street, as part of Westmont Downtown: Conversations about Things that Matter. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Although globalization has reduced distances between cultures, improving cooperation to increase security, well-being and peace remains a challenge for the world community. In response to this challenge, Montgomery says many academic, political and economic voices in the U.S. have called on higher education to globalize their curriculum and encourage more students to study abroad.

“Many world leaders have declared that our rapidly globalizing world demands knowledge, understanding, and commitment to effectively negotiate cultural and national boundaries,” Montgomery says. “Global education—study abroad—has been identified as an important means of equipping future leaders with these abilities and qualities.”

Montgomery will share her views about the skills, knowledge, character traits and ethics that global education must cultivate in order to prepare future leaders to constructively meet these global challenges. She says community members involved with study abroad programs, educational or cultural exchange, relief and development work or cross-cultural service projects will particularly enjoy the presentation.

Montgomery earned her doctorate in anthropology from Michigan State University in 1989 and began teaching at Westmont in 1990. She and Mary Doctor, Westmont professor of modern languages, developed Westmont’s study abroad program in Mexico through the Irvine Foundation diversity grant. Montgomery has been the resident director of the Westmont in Mexico program in Querétaro, Mexico, in 2005 and 2007. Her areas of expertise include the cultural anthropology of Mexico and Central America, cross-cultural communication studies, international development, and gender studies.

The lecture is part of the Westmont Downtown lecture series, sponsored by the Westmont Foundation, reaching out and engaging the larger Santa Barbara and Montecito communities.