World Citizens - DePaul University

It is that mix of the business and the culture that drew Morgan
Gallup, a senior, into a double major in business administration
and Chinese studies. Having visited Beijing, China, for two months
in 2005, she became acutely aware
that just knowing the language was
not enough. “You have to understand
a culture in today’s world. It’s such a
global economy that draws on so many
areas. You can’t just drop in a country
and expect to know the people or
do business.”
Religious differences widen
misunderstandings between groups
perhaps more than any other cultural
element. The Islamic world studies
program headed by religious studies
Professor Aminah Beverly McCloud
addresses these differences.
“Muslims come from over 80
countries to America, and some are
already American,” says McCloud. She
points out that the mélange of cultural
identities in nearly any group provides
not just one viewpoint, but many.
“Look at my class,” she says of her
Islamic culture course. “I have
Mexicans, Bosnians, South Asians
and Arabs, white and black adults
along with young people of every faith.
We learn from each other.” So it is with
the Islamic culture, which has many
faces. “Islam is a world civilization,”
McCloud points out.
Today’s global migration of all
manner of people, ideas and cultures,
at an unprecedented speed and volume,
has created new fears—and conflicts.
Lots of new immigration makes a country’s citizens, who were there
first, uneasy about their place in the society.
Student Morgan Gallup and Chinese studies
Visiting Professor Tian-long Chang
“You have to understand a culture in today’s world.
It’s such a global economy that draws on so many areas.
You can’t just drop in a country and expect to
know the people or do business.”
— Gallup
“Citizens feel disenfranchised, so scared, especially when they can
no longer understand what is being said around them or misunderstand
gestures or cannot read signs on the front of stores,” says McCloud.
“And that’s where some of the fear comes
from with our becoming so diverse. That
our home is being taken away, our place.”
This fear can be great enough to
cause conflict. “It’s dangerous. It’s beginning
to tear at this society,”she says.
McCloud’s class found examples
of these culture clashes as they examined
the ways in which Arabs and Muslims
are depicted in the media. They also went
to the Internet to find jihadist Web sites.
She says the class elected “to respond
[online] to the jihadist Web sites as students
in the West, challenging the jihadists’
perceptions.” Students also responded
online to people who had distorted ideas
about Arabs and Muslims.
“How can we be most effective?”
she asks. “Sitting in this classroom,
learning is one way, but you have to be
proactive as well.”
The Islamic world studies program
currently requires one year of Arabic
language study. Johnston says that one of
the next goals of the modern languages
department is to offer an Arabic studies
major, which will complement the Islamic
world studies program with an intensive
Arabic language component.
That will be yet another step in
ensuring that DePaul students are supported
by a curriculum that reflects the cultural
diversity in which they find themselves
today, and, ever more so, in the future.
Eric Ferkenhoff previously wrote for the Chicago Tribune
and now contributes to The New York Times and TIME magazine.
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