A Chat with Jamie Bender from Center for International Studies at University of Chicago

Kicking off the CCA blog’s brand new interview series is a discussion with Jamie Bender, the Outreach Coordinator at the Alliance’s partner institution, the Center for International Studies (CIS) at the University of Chicago. As stated on their website, CIS “sponsors and coordinates a wide variety of activities related to research, teaching, curriculum, and public outreach on global and international topics” through a range of lectures, conferences, and events aimed not only at university audiences but also at the broader Chicago community. A key component of CIS’s mission is to work with Chicago-area schools, which involves coordinating classroom visits from distinguished experts on a wide range of international topics, implementing teacher education workshops, and helping to build curricula.

At the helm of these K-12 teacher outreach programs is Jamie Bender, who before joining CIS taught anthropology and biology for eight years. What she loved about teaching is similar to what she loves about her current position at CIS: as a teacher, she could show her students how exciting other cultures can be and inspire them to move, both literally and figuratively, outside of their own communities. Her desire for students to have increased opportunities to learn about world events, as well as her personal motivation to learn more about the world beyond Chicago, drew her to CIS initially. Among the many aspects of her job as Outreach Coordinator that she finds rewarding are the opportunities to bring international topics presented by first-rate academics to the broader public for free and to develop teacher workshops and enrich curricula in order to continue inspiring students as she once did in the classroom.

One of the major benefits of their partnership with the Alliance that Jamie has seen is the chance to bridge the gap between CIS and Chicago’s cultural centers and ethnic museums. Establishing these deeper connections has led to increased awareness of what Chicago’s various cultural groups, by way of the Alliance’s core members, have to offer. In practical terms, this translates to mutually beneficial opportunities for both. CIS aims to create events with Alliance members, work together with them to develop lesson plans, and perhaps even attract more diverse audiences to CIS lectures. They also look forward to working individually with member groups to help them better reflect their world communities in general, and specifically, to better understand the impact of events abroad on their communities here in Chicago.

In addition to the important work of linking together cultural communities, being an Alliance partner also represents a small but significant step toward the achievement of more profound goals. A key component of the Alliance’s mission is “to effect social change and public understanding of cultural diversity,” which echoes Jamie’s own ardent belief that greater mutual understanding of cultures not only strengthens communities, but is the first step toward peace between all cultures. It is crucial, in her view, for engaged citizens to be aware of one another and to remain informed about what is happening elsewhere in the world. When students are encouraged to learn more about other cultures, differences that may have at first seemed frightening or weird become exciting. In Jamie’s words, “Small steps together change the world.”