The Global Citizen Summer Camp is a non-residential camp for middle school students (rising 6th through 8th graders). Through a variety of interactive and age appropriate activities, students are taught to step outside their comfort zone and gain a deeper understanding of what it means to belong to and navigate within multiple and diverse communities. Students will learn basics of a world language through an immersive experience and participate in activities that focus on developing intercultural competence and global citizenship.
Monday, July 15th – Friday, July 19th
9 AM – 5 PM
OSU Campus - Hagerty Hall
The overarching objectives are to promote skills in students to effectively:
- Communicate in the language of the people with whom one is interacting
- Interact with awareness, sensitivity, empathy, and knowledge of the perspectives of others
- Have developed cultural self-awareness and examined their beliefs, values, and assumptions regarding cultural differences
- Withhold judgment, examining one’s own perspectives as similar to or different from the perspectives of people with whom one is interacting
- Be alert to cultural differences in situations outside of one’s culture, including noticing cues indicating miscommunication or causing an inappropriate action or response in a situation
- Act respectfully according to what is appropriate in the culture and the situation where everyone is not of the same culture or language background, including gestures, expressions, and behaviors
- Increase knowledge about the products, practices, and perspectives of other cultures
Additional information about the camp:
- The camp will cap at a maximum of 15 students
- Students will spend half the day having a language (TBD) immersion experience and the other half learning about Intercultural Competence
- The cost for the camp is $200 (with limited needs-based scholarships; a discount is also available for enrolling more than one student from the same household)
- Students who attend the whole week of camp will be given a Certificate of Participation
For any questions regarding the summer camp, please email us at CLLCPrograms@osu.edu
To see photos from previous summer camps, please check out our photo gallery!
Meet the Instructors
Sandhya Shanker is an Education Program Senior Specialist at the Center for Languages, Literatures and Cultures. She is largely responsible for coordinating and collaborating on existing initiatives as well as envisioning and designing new initiatives related to the promotion of Intercultural Competence (IC) on campus. Sandhya is also an instructor for a General Education course at OSU titled FRIT 3054 (21st Century Skill: Intercultural Competence for Global Citizenship) and is a Qualified Administrator for the IDI © assessment. Prior to joining the CLLC in July 2023, Sandhya served as Director of the Community Language School at Michigan State University where she developed and supervised language programs as well as language and culture events for the larger community serving preschoolers to adults.
Zari Mahmoudi is a 5th year PhD candidate from the Ohio State University in Near Eastern and South Asian languages and cultures (NESA). She is working on her dissertation with the title of “A study on well-known and anonymous female mystics in Christianity and Islam", with a focus on their role and effect in mystical movements from the 10th to 14th century. Although Persian is her mother tongue, she possesses advanced knowledge of Arabic and has served as a graduate teaching assistant for Arabic for one year. Additionally, she participated in the CLLC summer camp in the summer of 2023, where she taught Persian. She is eagerly looking forward to working with middle schoolers again this summer and teaching them Arabic.