Students participating in the Global Officers Leadership Development (GOLD) Programme attended their annual conference on Wednesday 4th March. The conference focused on the theme of ‘Leadership in a Global Context’, hosted by Dr Anthony Manning, Dean for Internationalisation and included external speakers, Dr Carl Wright, exploring ‘Why leadership is essential for achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs)’ and Yinbo Yu, the former NUS International Students’ Officer, now working at UKCISA, on ‘Leading the student voice in International HE’.

During the day, the students were able to consider the impact of the SDGs on both the local and global scale. They reflected on their own actions and what contributions they could make. One of our Global Officers, Tinu Okotore, who is also a SDG Ambassador for the University of Kent, presented on the work she does in this role and what work we could do at the university level on meeting some of these Goals.

Finally, students were tasked with an exercise of considering what they would do if they were Vice Chancellor for the day on improving the international student experience.

The GOLD programme, launched in 2017, is a co-curricular venture that provides a framework of activities for globally-minded undergraduate students at Kent to develop their leadership skills, Global Citizenship and cultural awareness.

From September 2020, students have the opportunity to join the programme either as extra-curricular or as a wild module, GOLD500. Search and sign up via OMR.

For more information about the programme, please visit Kent Global’s website or contact International Partnerships.