By: Dr. Andrew Yox, Honors Director
On 25 November, NTCC honors students Remington Covey, and Sarah Dierflinger joined over 50 other students from Europe, Africa, and North America in what Amsterdam University Professor, Dr. Irena van Nynatten, has called the “Knowledge Café.” The Knowledge Café according to Nynatten provides a forum to discuss global issues from a more global perspective. Through the use of Microsoft Teams, and the lingua franca of the West—English, Covey, Dierflinger and others were able to exchange views about the meaning of global citizenship, and global leadership. Nynatten, the coordinator, began with a general question and context, during a plenary session. Then she broke the group down into chat rooms where the NTCC students were suddenly introducing themselves and talking directly to a business major from Vilnius, Lithuania, and a government major from the Catholic University of Bukavu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Thanks to the chat sessions, one found very quickly that the kind of news one receives in America, whether through Fox or CNBC, can be quite different from the slant of journalism elsewhere. Dr. Andrew Yox, NTCC Honors Director, who also participated noted, “that when the subject of cars came up, I was keyed to ask about the problems that the Germans were having keeping up with the likes of Tesla. But all two European students could talk about was how Chinese electric cars are superior to Tesla. Nationality was also an interesting issue. Outside of America, students tend to have a more cosmopolitan identity, and they don’t necessary want to talk a lot, from my perspective, about national cultures.” When the NTCC group was asked about what they were doing on behalf of global issues, initial reactions tended to follow the line that global issues were not very salient in small Texas cities, where Mexican-Americans provide the only diversion, culturally from the mainstream. However, the NTCC group also raised the point that they have worked in the last year on a global issue, toxification, through their film on how it has affected Texas. The response of at least one chat room to this revelation was fairly positive, as many of the European students, at least, admitted they had significant exposures every day to other students from different nationalities. Care for global issues then, did not necessarily depend on having a cosmopolitan context at home.
The NTCC group came away from the conference deeply impressed with the fluency this contingent of international students have obtained in English. Covey lives in a rural section of Camp County, and plays the role of Texas Senator Ralph Yarborough in the upcoming film on toxification. Dierflinger is from Winnsboro, and served as unit production director of this film effort.
Dr. Nynatten promises another Knowledge Café in April. NTCC students or professors interested in participating in this forum this spring are welcome to contact Dr. Yox at ayox@ntcc.edu.
