Student Employee of the Year: Keynote Speaker

Monday, April 7th the Student Employment Office will host the Student Employee of the Year Program in the Ballrooom of the Milo Bail Student Center. The Student Employment Office is gracious to have Lee Denker, President of the UNO Alumni Association.

Denker became part of the UNO staff in July of 2006 after long-time President Jim Leslie retired. Denker was born and raised in Papillion, Neb. and was excited to return to his native area. Prior to his commitment here to UNO, he spent five years with the Boise State Alumni Association. While there, he redesigned its dues-paying membership program and established a lifetime membership endowment fund. He also completed fundraising on the association's alumni center campaign, which is a student relations program launched under his direction that earned national recognition from the Association of Student Advancement Programs.

During college, Denker took some undergraduate courses here at UNO but completed his degree in Journalism from the University of Nebraska Lincoln where his also got his master's in Communication.

Lee Denker has already made many contributions to the University of Nebraska at Omaha in the short time he has been here. His acheivements and contributions are why he has been chosen as the speaker for the Student Employee of the Year Program.

The experiences of an international student

I came to UNO last Fall on a partial scholarship from the UNO international office for a Master of Science Degree in Management Information Systems. In this article, I share some little experiences from a personal perspective as an international student at UNO, (who also has the privilege of serving in the UNO Students Employment Advisory Board) and later weigh in on the contrasts between the British system of education (which I went through in my country, Kenya) and the American system of Education.

The British colonized Kenya after the 1884-1885 Berlin Conference, held in Berlin Germany under Otto Von Bismarck, divided Africa into territories and “spheres of influence.” By the time Kenya achieved her independence in 1963, the British bequeathed to Kenya, among other things, its system of education, mode of dressing and English as the official language of communication.

But first things first. At the time of my arrival in Omaha, Nebraska, when the plane touched down at the airfield, I was treated to a humid summer evening than I had envisioned.
Earlier on, at the JFK airport in New York City, the close proximity of the airport to the Atlantic Ocean had relived memories of two books I had read while in Kenya.

The first book is titled The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities of our Time. It is a 2005 book written by Columbia University professor of macro-economics Jeffrey Sachs. The major thesis in the book is that if concerted efforts are put by all world leaders, poverty in the world’s most distressed regions can be halved by 2015 and eventually wiped out by year 2025. He also tells that over the years, all the countries that have climbed through the ladder to become economic powerhouses have had access to sea ports and oceans. Apparently, these ports and oceans have opened up the borders of these countries for trade with the rest of the world.

The other book is by the American biologist Jared Diamond aptly titled Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. Professor Diamond is resoundingly right that the economic fate of nations or nation-states over the years has been defined, inter alia, by their geographical locations.

What the knowledge from these two books and the proximity of JFK to the Atlantic Ocean opened my mind to, was that America’s sparkling economic turnaround has been defined not only by its geographical location, but also by its state of the art infrastructure.



The British System and the American System.

By and large, the British system is a very elitist one. It selects the very top, what I would call the crème de la crème to proceed to universities. It emphasizes, in my view, I stand corrected, on breadth rather than depth. While it produces top scholars, it also closes down, even crashes the window of opportunity for talented students who though cannot make it among the very top.

The American system tends to create room for everybody. But it is also elitist to some extent. It selects the very top to Ivy League institutions, the Nobel Laureate candidates if you may. But it also does create room for all to exploit their potential than would have been possible in a closed society.

The American system tests what you understand and how you can apply it in industry. Its goal seems to be to prepare a student for a position in industry or academia, but less so as an entrepreneur. It stresses on team building and hands on understanding. Replete with much homework, it truly prepares a student to have a complete and competent grasp of the subject matter. The state of the art IT infrastructure no doubt augments the students’ efforts in producing quality term papers and discussion slides.

Conclusion

I find American a very open society which gives opportunities for everyone to excel. It is also a society that follows and respects both the spirits and letters of the law.

To some Americans, the world “ends” at the end of our street. Only what is of interest to us is what we should know. It is understandable that when a country is so big and powerful, one may not need an outward focus.

I would argue that there is need to know more and learn about other cultures. After all, New York Times columnist Thomas L Friedman powerfully reminds us in his scintillating book The World Is Flat that globalization has ushered in a breathtaking era in which the economic ( and by and large, cultural) playfield is being flattened.

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