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DR. MCDADE PRESENTS RESEARCH AT OXFORD UNIVERSITY Jacksonville State University’s Dr. Claudia McDade, director of Learning Services and professor of psychology, recently went to England to take part in a session of the Oxford University Round Table, where she presented a paper on philanthropy. This was Dr. McDade’s fifth trip to England and second time to accept an invitation to appear at a British university. She presented a paper on precision teaching at Cambridge in 1988. The Round Table’s purpose is to promote human advancement and understanding through the improvement of education. Oxford is the oldest English-speaking university in the world and lays claim to eight centuries of continuous existence. The following was excerpted from Dr. McDade’s discussion of her trip: QUESTION: What are some of the highlights of your visit? MCDADE: It was wonderful to see buildings that dated back to the 900’s. The Bodleian Library (the main research library of Oxford University) was started in the year 1400 and wasn’t completed until something like 1600. Much of Harry Potter was filmed in that library. Oxford University is so different from American Universities -- they have 39 colleges. We were at St. Anthony’s College, which is an all-graduate college. At the Round Table we had, instead of a podium or lectern, a box that was about three feet by two feet that sat on top of the desk, and that box had been used in parliament for 100 years and then given to the Oxford Union. The feeling of history there was amazing QUESTION: What did you gain from your Oxford experience that will help you at JSU? MCDADE: I have told my students about the differences in institutions like Oxford verses American schools like JSU. And I will be doing a luncheon speech at a state conference in November, where I will discuss the status of developmental education in England. I also brought back better presentation skills. QUESTION: Your research paper was titled, “Philanthropy and the Human Right to Health: In the Business of Enhancing Life.” What were your main points? MCDADE: That the most basic of all human rights is the right to health. If you are not healthy you can’t live up to your potential -- you can’t get educated, you can’t work, you can’t do anything. And if we look at the AIDS pandemic in Africa as one of the most glaring of failures of Western Society, we can see that the entire African continent is in dire need of medical education and care. In the next six to eight years 80% of the people who live in Africa will be dead from AIDS. And the United States is only now beginning to do something about it. The European Union has already assisted with more money than we were even talking about giving, and it’s only made a dent. Of the money that the U.S. has been talking about giving, through President Bush’s plan, only 10% is earmarked for education and prevention -- the rest is for treatment. If we put all the money into treatment, then all we’re doing is continuing the lives of people who are going to die anyway, verses getting people there to understand the causes. QUESTION: What were some of the conclusions you reached in your research on philanthropy? MCDADE: The foundations in our country are becoming more interested in their bottom line in terms of finding ways they can affect their parent company positively. We’re in the middle of a major change in the way corporate philanthropy is handled, and I think -- especially with leading drug companies and computer companies -- that’s going to make a major difference in global health care. |
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