Pro-noia: the belief that the world is conspiring towards your success - As defined by Jeff Pinzino, Closing Keynote speaker On February 25th, Northwestern students, GES staff and alumni, and community members gathered for GES Day 2012, a miniature version of the April summit. This all-day event incorporated four hands-on workshops on different aspect of social change, a lunchtime photo exhibit from Open Shutter, and a closing keynote address on “"Integrating Social Change Into Your Life" with Brooke Estin of InSTEDD and Jeff ...

Although I am sure most everybody has experienced career phobia to some extent in their lives, I have literally never been certain about what I want to be when I grow up. It has always made me feel a little unfocused and scared, but the whole concept of social entrepreneurship has changed that for me. I realized that whatever I do, in the grand scheme of things, I want to make an impact that transcends money and glory. ...

At the MLK Day vigil on Monday, Tim King, a pioneer of education reform and the founder of Urban Prep Academies, spoke about his organization’s commitment to develop its students’ intellect and character. Urban Prep runs a network of public charter schools in Chicago for young, underserved, black men to counter the huge disparities they face in academic success and job opportunity. Tim King drew on this principle of balance, of providing knowledge and building the ethic to use it, ...

GES. Global Engagement Summit. It’s a term that I had often heard thrown around campus but not something that I had ever really understood. I knew that a bunch of my friends were always busy for a week during spring quarter when students from all over the world came to Northwestern for some sort of conference. I knew that it had something to do with discussing projects. And I knew that the people in it worked really hard and seemed ...

So I’m in this class at Northwestern called “Creative Nonfiction: The Art of Writing for Social Change” along with half the staff in GES. We were recently assigned homework to write about what writing for social change is and what it can be. Besides the traditional reactions and answers, the crux of the discussion in class revolved around what the end product of such writing should be. I obviously don’t know the final answer but, more truthfully, I’m probably disappointed with the common response. Writing, I guess, is ...

By Anna Krist, GES staffer For the past few weeks, the Media and Marketing team has been working to include Evanston middle school students in the GES experience through an exciting new project called GES Colors.  Just last week, staff members went to Nichols Middle School and worked with 6th, 7th, and 8th graders in their art classes to create posters inspired by global engagement.  Their work will be part of a contest, and the finalists’ posters will be displayed on the GES website for ...

Recently, Northwestern alumni Will Butler of The Arcade Fire spoke at Northwestern as part of the Center for Civic Engagement's Civically Engaged Young Alumni Conference. He discussed the band's work with Partners in Health, the non-profit healthcare organization co-founded by influential global health leader Paul Farmer. For every ticket that the Arcade Fire sells, $1.00, £1.00, or €1.00 is added as a surcharge that gets donated to PIH. “The consumer doesn’t really notice it with Ticketmaster,” Butler jokingly explained, ...