Published: August 23, 2008 10:03 pm      

Central grad going ‘Global” at Georgetown

GEORGETOWN — Jonathan Newman is going global at Georgetown College after becoming a 2008 Madison Central High School graduate.

The 17-year-old was one of 10 freshman selected for a pilot class of Global Scholars, an extracurricular activity that complements student’s liberal arts education and prepares them for work in the international community.

“We just met each other,” Newman said about his fellow scholars. “We’re all from different cities.”

“There’s just so much encouragement that I’ll find with the fact that we’re a team,” he said. “We’ve already been doing a lot of team-based activities. It will help me be more prepared and more confident.”

Former Kentucky Gov. Martha Layne Collins, who is a senior professor of International Relations at the University of Kentucky’s Patterson School of Diplomacy, helped create Georgetown’s newest Program of Distinction.

The Global Scholars program is enhanced by a relationship with the Kentucky World Trade Center and an academic partnership with the Patterson School, a graduate program that builds global careers for its students.

“This program enhances, enriches and expands the outstanding liberal arts education Georgetown College students already receive and prepares them for future competition in the global marketplace,” Collins said on the program’s Web site.

Requirements include an internship with an international company or organization, an Internship in Washington, D.C., or a foreign country, attendance at program leadership events, selected required reading list, regular listening to BBC radio or viewing BBC television and a nomination/reference form with application for program admittance.

Upon graduation, Global Scholars will have participated in four years of programming and activities that will give them exposure to different cultures and teach them how to be leaders in our global community.

“The idea is to kind of be ready politically with a language and through a culture,” said Newman, who also is a member of Georgetown’s soccer team. “The vision is to enhance the learning experience for students with an interest in expanding their global perspective.”

Newman, who plans to major in Commerce, Language and Culture, will focus on the Japanese language.

“I’m real passionate about Japanese and their culture,” he said. “Luckily, Georgetown has Japanese. So, I’m going to take advantage of that. Right now, I just know a few phrases to get around. I actually know more Mandarin Chinese than Japanese from where Madison Central offered Chinese my senior year.”

“I love learning languages,” Newman said. “I’ve taken Latin I and II, Chinese I and II, Spanish.”

He became more familiar with Japan after training for two weeks in 2007 with missionaries in Tokyo through the International Mission Board.

“It’s was great,” Newman said. “I had a chance to work with missionaries and get to experience how we connect with people on the streets. A lot of the Japanese can actually speak English so it was easy for me to communicate with them. We went on college campuses and built relationships.”

That experience has propelled him to know what lies ahead for him in the future, he said.

“Ever since my junior year and that Tokyo trip I’ve known that I’ve got to focus on languages,” Newman said. “This is where I can best fit my purpose in life. I knew that God placed this Global Scholars program here and gave me this opportunity. It wasn’t an accident. I’m seizing it.”



Bryan Marshall can be reached at bmarshall@richmondregister.com or 624-6691.