GLOBAL CONNECTIONS MICROLOANS TEACH MACRO LESSON By ELIZABETH FONTAINE HILDEBRAND ’92
FOR DR. ANDREW ADE, CONNECTION IS EVERYTHING. As a 10-time professor of Westminster’s Inquiry program—a course for first-year students designed to introduce them to the liberal arts education model—Ade was searching for ways to show Westminster’s newest students just how interconnected and interrelated the people of the world are. “As soon as they understand that, the smaller the world gets,” said Dr. Ade, professor of English, whose own worldview was shaped largely in part to his two and a half year Peace Corps stint in the Central African country of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). “I was trying to figure out how I could bring a part of my own Peace Corps experience into that class so the students could see how the rest of the world connects with us,” he said. Ade had been self-educating about microlending—loaning small amounts of money to people in need—and its founder, Muhammad Yunnus, a Bangladeshi economist who in the 1970s created the Grameen Bank, the first viable lending institution for people with no credit or collateral. He earned the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his efforts to create social and economic development, and his 2006 memoir Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty resonated with Ade.
Andrew Ade, professor of English, center, during his days as a Peace Corps volunteer in Zaire.
“I had lived that life in my village in Zaire. I saw the economic reality of its people,” Ade said. As he began preparing for his fall 2009 Inquiry class, Ade considered sharing parts of Yunnus’ book with his upcoming Inquiry class. He also was contemplating having his Inquiry students help him decide
INQUIRY & KIVA
Borrower applies for a loan
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Loan goes through Kiva approval process
Loan request posted to Kiva’s website
Inquiry students research Kiva loan opportunities
Inquiry students choose borrower to support
