Education

Education Director Ananya Roy (3rd from left) with GPP Minor Students Ursula Wagner, Marcelo Garzo and Amina Kator (L-R) at the annual GPP Minor Dinner Celebration

Education - the training of the next generation of scholars, researchers, and professionals - is central to the mission of the Blum Center. Our signature program is an interdisciplinary undergraduate minor in Global Poverty and Practice. Launched in 2007, it provides the theoretical frameworks, methods and skills, and creative opportunities necessary for students to participate in forms of practice that engage global poverty in imaginative and practical ways. Nearly 400 students from majors ranging from Economics to Engineering, Molecular & Cell Biology to Anthropology, Architecture to Public Health, are currently enrolled in the Minor. These students each complete a global practice experience that reflects their academic interests and ethical commitments.

In addition to its core courses, each semester the Global Poverty and Practice minor sponsors enrichment courses that shed light on patterns of poverty and forms of poverty alleviation. Recent courses have included Entrepreneurship to Address Global Poverty; Water and Development; The World Economy in the Twentieth Century; Women, Poverty, and Globalization; Technology and Development; Poverty and Peripheries in Asia. The minor is governed by an Education Committee made up of distinguished faculty representing a wide range of disciplines and professions. It is staffed by experienced advisors who have considerable skill in developing and managing academic leadership programs.

I invite you to read more about the work of these students and to think more about the ethics of global citizenship which animates the Global Poverty and Practice minor.

— Ananya Roy
Blum Center Education Director
Co-Director, Global Metropolitan Studies Center
Professor, Department of City & Regional Planning

Global Poverty and Practice Minor

The Global Poverty and Practice minor is already the fastest growing minor at the UC Berkeley campus, with well over 300 students from 50 different majors. Undergraduate students in all disciplines are encouraged to join the minor.

Overview of GPP Minor