{"id":17171,"date":"2021-06-24T15:24:18","date_gmt":"2021-06-24T19:24:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transy.edu\/1780\/?p=17171"},"modified":"2021-06-25T08:22:11","modified_gmt":"2021-06-25T12:22:11","slug":"transylvania-alumna-uses-lessons-learned-in-college-to-navigate-global-challenges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transy.edu\/1780\/2021\/06\/transylvania-alumna-uses-lessons-learned-in-college-to-navigate-global-challenges\/","title":{"rendered":"Transylvania alumna uses lessons learned in college to navigate global challenges"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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Imagine working with a host country\u2019s government to improve education equity, only to have members of that country\u2019s ministry question the idea of a girl\u2019s right to an education. Or, while leading a workshop on gender-based violence, having audience members insist that women don\u2019t mind being assaulted. How would you, intent on improving primary education in sub-Saharan Africa and contracted by the United States Agency for International Development, respond in the moment?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Julianne Norman \u201911 in Morocco<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

For Julianne Norman \u201911, the ability to navigate these challenges relates back to her liberal arts training at Transylvania and the preparation she received as a double major in French and religion. Her love of French language and literature \u2014 nourished by professors Simonetta Cochis and Brian Arganbright \u2014 sparked her interest in francophone Africa, and the study of religion opened her mind to other perspectives. Summer research grants from Transylvania developed the skills she uses today, and the liberal arts created an insightful and generous person equipped to handle being comfortable being uncomfortable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Norman\u2019s focus is on improving foundational literacy and numeracy outcomes and social and emotional learning skills, as well as reducing gender-based violence in schools. She leads workshops in Tanzania and Uganda, produces peer-reviewed original research and manages a team of 132 people in Liberia, mostly from her home base in Washington, D.C. Every dimension of her job with RTI International \u2014 a nonprofit, science-based, multidisciplinary research institute and federal contractor \u2014 relates back to her education at Transylvania. She says she employs the liberal arts every single day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOn the most obvious and basic level is the ability to be a critical thinker and to engage in sophisticated discourse,\u201d says Norman. \u201cMaking progress in my field requires connection on a human level. That\u2019s something a liberal arts education teaches you. It\u2019s really teaching you about the human condition. We\u2019re expressing ourselves through the humanities, through scientific discoveries, through writing about it in literature and philosophy. And it\u2019s about finding human connection and deepening that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what you have to do in this job too,\u201d she adds. \u201cI have to find a way to connect with other cultures. And to understand what drives them and what their needs are as well.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Norman leads a workshop on school-related gender-based violence (SRGBV) for ministry of education officials and teachers in Uganda. Her work on SRGBV, a program she and her colleagues developed called ‘Journeys,’ was adopted by the Uganda Ministry of Education and Sports and incorporated into national policy for primary schools in the country.\n<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n