Global perspective in action

By Janelle Harb, Marketing Coordinator

Based on an interview with Pamela Pozarny ‚78 thousands of lives and traces her initial interest in other cultures back to SEM.

“At SEM, I was very interested in French, I was in one of the higher classes with our dear Madame Kurtz,” Pamela said. “I was very, very close with her, she was definitely one of my strongest mentors. The way that she was teaching was not like your average public school, we were reading, we were interpreting, it was just so inspiring, and I just loved it, and I loved her.”

Pamela recalls being part of one of SEM’s first cohorts to take part in an organized six-week exchange to France. “That was unheard of back then,” Pamela said. “So of course, I wanted to go.” During this time, the students each stayed with host families and attended French high school. “I reflect now in retrospect, that most clearly the French experience from SEM was a ‘petit gout’ of possibilities, showed me a slice of ‘what is possible,’ nudged me into it,” she continued.

“It built that confidence to take on a bit of the unknown,” she said. “Out of my norm and comfort zone, and I took the dive into the (somewhat) unknown to have this very lifeshaping experience.” Pamela stated that her feeling of success after this program was a key moment in building her self-confidence and courage to continue exploring.

That spark for wanderlust carried Pamela to Reed College in Portland, Oregon, which enabled her first visit to Africa through a summer work program. “It was such a wonderful experience and an eye opener, and it really changed my direction in life,” she explained. “Africa is so interesting, and there’s so much need, it was just a whole new landscape for me.”

After graduating with a degree in anthropology, Pamela joined the Peace Corps. “It seemed like a really good option for me [because] I had French,” she said. As a result, Pamela was placed in Togo, a French-speaking West African nation where she taught agricultural education. “I chose a very small remote village because I really wanted the experience,” she explained. “I lived in a mud hut, no electricity, no running water, no toilet, no nothing, with a family, and so it was an absolutely wonderful experience.”

With a strong foundation in development work and the need more apparent than ever, Pamela went to grad school to better learn how she could help. “I thought having had my experience and Peace Corps that if I’m gonna work in Africa, I really have to know my agriculture a little bit better and have that real breadth, because the great needs of Africa are really around food systems agriculture,” she explained.

Granted a Fulbright scholarship, Pamela returned to Togo, completing two years of doctorate research. She then moved on to working with Africare, helping Rwandan citizens post-genocide. “There was great need, it was kind of almost post-emergency, and what an experience,” she said, when the United Nations noticed and picked up on her work.

Working with the United Nations Development Programme, Pamela helped the Rwandan ministry in the development and planning of a nation trying to rebuild. “The five years I spent in Rwanda was really, really challenging,” she said. “But I must say it was so satisfying, because I was really part of a movement, and really working very closely with the government. And I mean, talk about feeling like you’re contributing and really making a difference.”

After a research project in Zimbabwe, she joined her current department in Rome, the Food and

Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, a specialized agency focused on nutrition and community development where she has continued her work as a senior rural sociologist for over 20 years.

“When I think back about it and reflect on my experience there, SEM was really a safe place,” Pamela said. “At SEM, you can try a lot of new things and it’s forgiving, it allows for mistakes in all kinds of ways, because it’ll catch you, like a safety net.”

Pamela continued that the connections she formed with faculty and care they took in her education fueled her passion for more. “I do recognize how at SEM I really gained that confidence that enables you to really reach out and strive and be ambitious or think about things that maybe you wouldn’t think that you could actually do and try,” she said. “So it allows you, I call it, a glimpse of the possible.”

She credits SEM for instilling in her the idea of giving back and contributing to society. “It’s been my guiding light,” Pamela said. “I felt I wanted to go much bigger than thou and much bigger than me and I have followed that, because that’s what has really motivated me. I really wanted to contribute in a very focused way [and] I did that.”

Upon reflection, Pamela values the way SEM, even 50 years ago, had students and teachers conversing together about current events and global issues. “[I was] really learning to think and it’s that small, intimate classroom and the way that SEM teaches that allows that space to really think things through and talk about it, it really helped me,” she said. Taking her education in her own hands and furthering her own understanding independently is a skill that has been invaluable throughout her career.

“One can see a bit of a life pattern here,” Pamela explained, “leaping from one life-shaping experience to the next, mustering a bit of courage, in fact, being a bit bold, for sure, while also intuitively analyzing whether the step works for me, makes sense in my pathway in terms of interest, excitement, direction. Seldom completely clear for me at the time, but when I look back, it may make sense after all.”

Her advice for current student students and anyone is to learn a second language, especially in today’s globalized world, citing that it is a requirement for UN employees. “Everything is global now, so whether you’re interested in this or that, there’s no way around it,” Pamela said, “this is the world we are working in and living in.”

Pamela’s storied life and career are evidence of the way in which SEM has instilled in students the importance of global perspective and the way in which it serves to guide us and make us better contributors to society. “SEM is spot on because in all different aspects, and needs and forms, we are a global world and more than ever, way more appreciated and needed than when I was in 1978 graduating” Pamela said. “We must be thinking in a global perspective, and not just our global leaders, but you, the young people, it’s your future.” •