About

Recently higher education’s interest in internationalization has intensified. This phenomenon has made most universities attempt to be a world class university. Parahyangan Catholic University (UNPAR) starts to strengthen its process to internationalization as well. Many activities conducted by UNPAR are actions dedicated for global community. Consequently, UNPAR has to be aware that the concept of civic education or engagement has broadened from a national focus to a more global one. UNPAR also has to realize that civic responsibility extends beyond national borders. This recent trend builds responsibility of UNPAR as an institution for higher education, to play a role to increase awareness of the youth to cope with global issues or global problems. This comprehension generates the idea that every person must be a global citizen.
Global citizenship is a popular and respectively important concept nowadays. Even though the concept is not new, it has been widely used by higher education activities or researches just recently. UNPAR as an institution for higher education, has the accountability to promote and prepare students to contribute positively to the global community.

The meaning of global citizenship will be described as following:

1. It is a choice and a way of thinking, in which a national citizen decides to engage in global issues or with different cultures in a local setting. 
2. It is a self-awareness and awareness of others, in which a national citizen will build his own self awareness, to enable him to identify with the universalities of the human experience, thus increasing his identification with fellow human beings and his sense of responsibility toward him.
3. It is a practice of cultural empathy, by which a national citizen sees questions from multiple perspectives and move deftly among cultures—sometimes navigating his own multiple cultural identities, sometimes moving out to experience unfamiliar cultures.
4. It is a cultivation of principled decision-making, which entails an awareness of the interdependence of individuals & systems and a sense of responsibility that follows from it.

It is a participation in the social and political life of one’s community, through which a national citizen feels a connection to his communities and translates that sense of connection into participation.

These descriptions of global citizenship are the set attitudes that UNPAR finds important to be implanted to all young people, to create their sense of responsibility that they are not only national citizens, but they are global citizens, who are responsible to cope with not only local issues, but also global problems.

Therefore, UNPAR humbly presents a piece of contribution to develop the awareness of youngsters as global citizens by conducting an International Student Conference under the theme ‘Global Citizenship’.