GPE Co-Director Alex Merkovic First in GES Alumni Speaker Series at Northwestern University

Tuesday evening, Global Peace Exchange Director, Alex Merkovic, spoke to an enthusiastic group of Northwestern Students regarding their annual Global Engagement Summit (held this year in April). As an alumni of GES last year, Alex explained the crucial role the summit played in helping make last year’s GPE trip to Ghana possible. In addition, the GES staff discussed the possibilities of coming to Tallahassee for the upcoming UNAOC-themed conference, Building Bridges, to be held at FSU this coming February. Dozens of students expressed an interest and commitment to apply as delegates to the conference.

Northwestern’s Center for Global Engagement also runs the ENGAGE Uganda program, a hybrid service/study abroad program that has NU students working on sustainable development projects all around Uganda for the summer. GPE plans on working with ENGAGE Uganda in a cross-border partnership during GPE’s two-month stay in Rwanda.

GPE Featured in Tallahassee Democrat

Article published Oct 1, 2007
Students offer time, money to Peace Exchange
By Jennifer Jefferson
DEMOCRAT STAFF WRITER

Some students want to save the world, and they have decided to start in college.

Joe O'Shea, Nick Fiore and Alex Merkovic have decided to create the Global Peace Exchange, which is described as similar to the U.S. Peace Corps at the college level.

The goal of the organization is to gather student volunteers from all over the country and the world to use their talents and skills internationally to serve less fortunate countries.

"Our mission is to reach as many people as possible," Fiore said.

“We're the quarterback school of the whole thing,” Merkovic said. “It's surprisingly easy to network. We're not the only people that care. This generation has a lot to offer and wants to make a difference in the world.”

The group hopes to go to Rwanda to build a school and bring medicine to children. Last year, Merkovic gathered like-minded people to lend a helping hand in Buduburam Refugee Camp in Ghana. The camp was started in 1990 and houses more than 50,000 refugees from Liberia who fled the civil war.

"We really learned so much," Merkovic said. "We learned more from our village than we were able to teach."

“They have this hope that is so profound,” Fiore said. “We tried our best to improve upon their living conditions, education and hope.”

Merkovic also thinks that his good deeds will foster communion among other countries.

"If the first American you meet is building you a school or providing you treatment for worms, it's going to give you a better view of Americans," he said.

"The one element that binds everyone is that we are all trying to survive," O'Shea said.

The group is looking for donations and grants that will help with the cost of international service projects.

The True Seminole campaign will underwrite some of the costs, O'Shea said. The mission “embraces the values that make FSU so unique.”

GPE co-director Joe O'Shea named Rhodes Scholar

At age 21, Florida State University senior and Student Body President Joseph O’Shea has founded a free health clinic in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward, led a coalition for healthcare reform in Leon County, and co-founded an international service-based exchange program for students worldwide.

Now, O’Shea can add “Rhodes Scholar” to his already exceptional resume.

On Nov. 17, the dynamic campus and community leader with a seat on FSU’s Board of Trustees became one of the 32 U.S. college students selected as Rhodes Scholars this year. An FSU Honors Program student with majors in philosophy and interdisciplinary social sciences and a 4.0 grade point average, O’Shea rose to the top of an extraordinary field of finalists during a grueling application and interview process that demands months — some say years — of preparation and practice.

“I was awestruck,” said O’Shea, who hails from Clearwater, Fla. “The Rhodes Scholarship is such a remarkable opportunity and a launching pad to help those in need for the rest of my life. My mom was weeping over the phone when I told her. My father passed away in May. I wish he could have been here to see this. I am so grateful for the exceptional education I’ve received at FSU.”

The Rhodes Scholarship funds up to three years of undergraduate or post-graduate study in England at the University of Oxford. Created in 1902 through a bequest in the will of Cecil Rhodes, a British philanthropist and colonial pioneer, it is the oldest international study award available to American students and widely considered the most prestigious of its kind.

O’Shea is the third FSU student ever to be named a Rhodes Scholar (the first was Caroline Alexander in 1976) and the second since 2005, when student-athlete Garrett Johnson received the honor.

“The entire FSU community joins me in congratulating Joe O’Shea for a stellar record of achievement that will reverberate into the future not only across this campus and community but also throughout our nation and around the globe,” said FSU President T.K. Wetherell. “We’re honored that this inexhaustible and visionary young man chose FSU as his undergraduate home. The Rhodes Scholarship is a fitting recognition of his world-class commitment to both scholarship, social activism and service.”

Then there’s the Truman Scholarship. In March 2007 that highly prestigious national fellowship was awarded to O’Shea in recognition of his outstanding leadership potential and community service. As a Truman Scholar, he’ll receive $30,000 toward the completion of a graduate-level degree at the institution of his choosing in exchange for public service work for three of the seven years afterwards.

With two top national scholarships in hand, O’Shea intends to first earn a Rhodes-funded Master of Philosophy degree in Comparative Social Policy at Oxford, then a Truman-funded law degree. Not surprisingly, he envisions a career dedicated to public service, and he’s already had plenty of practice. Since 2006, O’Shea has founded or co-founded:

• The Lower Ninth Ward Health Clinic in post-Katrina New Orleans, which provides preventive and primary care to about 10,000 patients annually;
• Global Peace Exchange, an international service-based exchange program for students worldwide, modeled after the U.S. Peace Corps;
• Leon County Community Healthcare Coalition, which led the effort to provide comprehensive healthcare reform for the area’s indigent residents; and
• Student United Way, an initiative that mirrors local United Way operations by harnessing student philanthropy and operating as a clearinghouse for student community service.

“The Rhodes Scholarship invests in future leaders who possess a distinct blend of intellect and character,” said Jamie Purcell, director of FSU’s Office of National Fellowships. “Joe is just what the Rhodes Trust aims to support, a starry-eyed idealist with the energy and determination to make a profound impact on the world. He is extraordinarily accomplished yet still brimming with potential.”

As the leader of FSU’s student body and Student Government Association — and in specific roles such as director of the Office of Social Justice and member of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity — O’Shea has logged a host of achievements. Among others, he spearheaded the creation of the Men Advocating Responsible Conduct Affiliated Project, which aims to reduce sexual violence and promote gender equality on campus, and helped drive the “True Seminole Campaign,” an effort to unite the FSU community and encourage service to others (profits from campaign merchandise help support FSU student volunteers as “True Seminole Ambassadors” and the construction of a technical school in Rwanda).

Among many other honors earned while at FSU, O’Shea was named to USA Today’s All Academic First Team; was a junior-year inductee to Phi Beta Kappa; won the FSU College of Arts and Sciences’ Academic Leadership Award; garnered an FSU Profile of Service Award; and received the FSU Artes Award — awarded annually to a student who best represents the “beauty of intellectual pursuit.”

O’Shea serves as a trustee on FSU’s Board of Trustees and its Foundation and Athletic boards of directors, and holds a seat on dozens of FSU committees and three local or state-level leadership boards. As a member of the U.S. Public Service Academy’s National Youth Advisory Board, he is working to increase support for a bill to create a public service-centered undergraduate institution modeled after the nation’s military academies.

“Joe not only has made us proud, he has made us better,” said Mary Coburn, FSU’s Vice President for Student Affairs. “His passionate pursuit of social justice has inspired civic engagement in countless others. This is a young leader who truly will be making a difference in the decades to come.”