The Winter issue of Notre Dame Magazine is out. Click here to see my piece about Global Issues and the United Nations, a class that uses Notre Dame’s portable Polycom video conferencing system to link students to U.N. members where they can get a better understanding of world matters from hunger and international migration to the governance of the U.N. Security Council. Here’s a brief excerpt:

“I can tell them how people outside our country might interpret U.S. policies, but when they hear somebody from another country give them a perspective on their own country — that can be really insightful,” says Jackie Smith, an associate professor of sociology and fellow of Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, who has taught the course since arriving at the University in 2005.