Close your eyes and imagine you have found yourself standing in the presence of a former United States president. What would you say to him?
When DePauw University sophomore Luka Ignac was in this very position, he only thought of “trying to not say something stupid.”
Ignac had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity not only to meet and shake the hand of former President Bill Clinton, but also to ask about his personal plan to ignite change within the Greencastle community. The two met at the 10th annual Clinton Global Initiative University, which was held over the weekend of Oct. 13-15 at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts.
According to the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) website, the event Ignac attended is a meeting “to engage the next generation of leaders on college campuses around the world.” Ignac is one of 1,100 of these future leaders from the entire world to be accepted to attend.
The event is composed of three parts: panels featuring distinguished speakers, networking events, and workshops. The panels, networking events, and workshops all focused on the five focus areas of the GCI U: education, environment and climate change, peace and human rights, poverty alleviation and public health.
Of these three components of the event, the panels were Ignac’s favorite because he saw them as an irreplicable opportunity to learn from some of the most well-respected political leaders, entrepreneurs, and activists in the world.
Other than Bill Clinton, the speakers included influential leaders of all ages and backgrounds, including Chelsea Clinton; Olympic gold medalist, activist, and entrepreneur, Ibtihaj Muhammad; and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
The five focus areas are representative of the issues the GCI U hopes to assist motivated college students in addressing. For that reason, in the application to attend the event, students must come up with a unique Commitment to Action.
Ignac described a Commitment to Action as a “societal plan.” These are initiatives that students create to address an issue that they see in the community, whether that is their university community, their local community, or the global community.
Ignac’s personal Commitment to Action is entitled “My Global Voice World.” The plan is focused on “empowering youth to be more active in society and thinking more critically about problems that are occurring in politics.”
He plans to start implementing the initiative by taking DePauw students of both American and international backgrounds into Greencastle High School and having them teach the high school students about U.S. and international politics. The catch is that American students will be teaching about international politics, and international students will be teaching about American politics. Ignac seeks to make people cognisant of the realities in other cultures. He hopes to get his initiative started second semester of this school year.
So next time you see Luka Ignac wandering around campus - likely looking slightly stressed out, since in addition to creating such an labor-intensive program he also is pursuing a double major in political science and French - be sure to stop and ask to see his selfies with the United State’s 42 President Clinton.