Education Excellence

Kristina chats with Stacie Freeman, co-executive director at Bright Light Volunteers and associate professor of sociology at Bethel University in Tennessee about global citizenship. Bright Light Volunteers is dedicated to fostering the common humanity in the global setting and how individual students and others truly can make a difference in the world. When Freeman began offering global learning to first-generation college students almost a decade ago through the global studies department, the goal was to enable these students to take responsibility for what is happening in the world, in part, by offering volunteer opportunities through Bright Light Volunteers, which partners with nonprofit institutions far and wide, including in Costa Rico, Thailand, and Cuba. Recently, Freeman notes, Bright Light Volunteers is beginning to measure the achievement of high school participants and found that 100 percent have graduated from high school and 100 percent have attended college. The college retention rate for global