Worcester Business Journal

10 Worcester Business Journal | June 21, 2021 | wbjournal.com Build with Us. Grow with Us. gardnerma.com p 978.632.1780 • f 978.630.1767 • Chamber@gardnerma.com Why locate your business in Greater Gardner? Flexible and ready workforce More aordable residential market Excellence in healthcare and education Quality of life: attractions, dining, shopping, outdoor recreational settings Aordable commercial and industrial market rates Turnkey properties Pad-ready building sites Opportunity Zone availability Easy Route 2 Corridor highway access The Greater Gardner region of Northern Worcester County consists of the City of Gardner and 6 the surrounding towns of Ashburnham, Barre, Hubbardston, Templeton, Westminster, and Winchendon. Greater Gardner Chamber of Commerce e global dean W ith Mimi Sheller of Philadelphia's Drexel University just named incoming dean, e Global School at Worcester Polytechnic Uni- versity has launched as a formalizing and furthering of something the univer- sity has done all along: global projects. Announced in February 2020, e Global School is intended to serve as a platform for research programs, global partnerships and tackling global issues, like climate change. e school is pro- jected to provide faculty and students with opportunities to collaborate with students, academics, governments, non-governmental organizations, and local communities. e brainchild of WPI President Lau- rie Leshin, the school is an umbrella to existing units such as the Department WPI's effort to take its project-based learning model to the global stage will get an added boost with the arrival of a new dean in July of Integrative and Global Studies and the Global Experience office – which helps students ready for off-campus travel – as well as the Global Lab. WPI stands alone in this particular brand of global learning, said Dawn Michele Whitehead, vice president of the Office of Global Citizenship for Campus, Community, and Careers at the Association of American Colleges and Universities. "It's the project-based learning piece of the global learning that is embedded, that is a real example for this kind of problem solving," for other higher-ed- ucation institutions, she said. "It gives WPI this opportunity to differentiate itself and gives other institutions some- thing to aspire to." e arrival of Sheller into the role of e Global School's first dean marks a milestone in its short history. Set to arrive on campus in July, Sheller brings a unique asset to e Global School: Her expertise in mobilities – a social science examining the movement of people and things and the implications they bring. At Drexel, she founded and served as director of its Center for Mobilities Research and Policy, a hub for examining global issues in that field. She said the field of mobilities and e Global School mesh well, which is what drew her to the position at WPI. "Mobilities is full of social justice questions on the politics of movement, such as who and what can move," she said, "or the constraints on mobility systems around the world. When I looked at e Global School, I was excited to do mobility research at a setting like WPI, with its reputation for project-based learning and problem- solving through interdisciplinary teamwork." Adding empathy to STEM A Philadelphia na- tive, Sheller has been known to work in different disciplines herself. She earned a bachelor's degree in history and literature from Harvard and Radcliffe colleges in Cambridge; a master's in sociology and historical studies; and a Ph.D. in sociology from the New School for Social Research in New York City. Among her many ac- ademic positions was visiting associate professor of sociology at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania and founding co-director of the Centre for Mobilities Research at Lancaster University in the United Kingdom. Sheller calls e Global School model – introducing empathy to STEM disci- plines and solving the problems of the world community – the future of higher education. "WPI built the framework for doing it," said Sheller. "It's a model. It is a unique school." WPI's Department of Integrative and Global Studies is all about retooling the city of Worcester's heritage of innovation and industry, she said. "Now, we take that heritage and pivot it toward the outside world," Sheller said. Project requirements For the launch of a new school, the timing may have appeared unfortunate on the surface, as COVID reached epidemic levels in the U.S. just weeks later. To maintain safe conditions on campus, commemorative events to mark the occasion had to be held virtually throughout the coming months, with speakers on various topics of global importance presented from locations around the world. But the school's arrival – coinciding with a pandemic – ultimately brought a sense of deeper meaning, said WPI Provost Winston Soboyejo. "It really addressed its greater sense of purpose," Soboyejo said. "It helped identify the global great challenges, such as, 'How do we bring teams together on matters like this, matters such as global public safety?' It has shown that the school is more important than ever." For years, WPI has had its Great BY SUSAN SHALHOUB Special to the Worcester Business Journal Mimi Sheller, incoming dean of The Global School at Worcester Polytechnic Institute Winston Soboyejo, provost of Worcester Polytechnic Institute

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