As associate dean for global engagement for the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff’s Office of International Programs and Studies (OIPS), Dr. Pamela Moore’s mission includes guaranteeing that UAPB students have transformational experiences abroad and that international students have the same type of experiences at UAPB. Thanks to her efforts, UAPB students have participated in educational programs in countries such as China, Mexico, France, South Africa, Ghana, Kenya, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic and Colombia.
Many of her office’s initiatives are related to the agriculture industry and its sustainability. For example, funding through the 1890 Center of Excellence in International Engagement and Development recently enabled OIPS to conduct three signature study abroad programs for students pursuing degrees in agriculture, aquaculture and fisheries and human sciences at 1890 land-grant institutions.
Out of the funded initiatives, one two-week project allowed students from UAPB, North Carolina A&T University and Tennessee State University to learn about agricultural topics such as maize breeding, catfish farming and the production of value-added foods in Ghana. Another program, also organized in Ghana, allowed 1890 land-grant faculty and students to design and conduct a three-day Extension training program in aquaculture and fisheries for the faculty and staff at a partner institution. A service-learning program in Kenya allowed UAPB students to compare the American and Kenyan cultures and develop their professional skills. These programs were led by faculty program leaders in the UAPB School of Agriculture, Fisheries and Human Sciences through funding and technical support provided by OIPS.
“There is a catalytic dimension that permeates all aspects of global programming,” Dr. Moore said. “This is because our work involves linking persons across cultural boundaries in ways that foster the sharing of knowledge, new ideas and new ways of thinking. For example, when one of our students lands in a different country, I do not need to be present to imagine the swirl of ideas and sensations that are being felt and experienced. The student returns changed and transformed in so many ways.”
Global dynamics that are constantly changing make Dr. Moore’s job both challenging and rewarding.
“All aspects of our work are connected to or influenced by dynamics across the world,” she said. “This includes wars, climate change disruptions, changes in government policies and laws – you name it.”
Considering the number of students she has convinced to get outside their comfort zones and study abroad, some might be surprised to learn that when she was a college student, Dr. Moore backed out of the first study abroad program she was set to take part in.
“The summer before my senior year, I was selected to participate in a program in the Dominican Republic which was organized by Morehouse College faculty,” she said. “In the end, I dropped out of the program due to family concerns combined with the competing pressures to obtain internships and prepare for my last year of school.”
Nonetheless, upon graduation from Spelman College with a degree in political science, Dr. Moore spent a year abroad, traveling across Europe and Africa.
“I had been granted a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship and had to make all my own arrangements in an era when the internet and mobile phones did not exist,” she said. “What strikes me most about the experience was the diverse range of places I visited and people I met.”
During her time in Geneva, Switzerland her host was the daughter of the government official who had overseen the U.S. government’s Marshall Plan relief efforts in Greece following the end of World War II.
“My ‘host mom’ attended boarding school in Switzerland and chose to remain there. She got married, raised a family and worked for the World Council of Churches,” Dr. Moore said. “One weekend we stayed at her chalet in the Alps on a brutally cold weekend. Yet a few months later, I was living with Ethiopian refugees in the desert outside of Khartoum, Sudan. These were young adults and college students who were fleeing political oppression in their home country.”
From 1982 to 1987, Dr. Moore worked toward earning a master’s degree in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and a Juris Doctorate in law from Harvard Law School as part of a dual degree program.
“Though I was in this program, I think my experiences abroad really took me out of the traditional career trajectory with its focus on wealth and status,” Dr. Moore said. “After completion of my degrees, I made the radical decision to return south and teach at Jackson State University, a historically Black institution in Jackson, Mississippi. To date, I have never regretted this decision. One may say that Paulo Freire, a world-renowned Brazilian educator who initially studied law as myself, has been an important inspiration.”
Dr. Moore credits her time at Jackson State University with laying the groundwork for the rest of her career. Because she was tasked with key roles in developing diverse global initiatives, which subsequently led to other professional engagements in the U.S. and abroad, she was well prepared when she started working for UAPB in 2011.
Dr. Moore was born in 1960 and spent her childhood in the city of Greenville, Mississippi, located in the Delta region of the state. At the time, the Civil Rights Movement was gaining global attention and impacting all aspects of life in Mississippi and across the south.
“The area I grew up in has captured the imagination of generations,” she said. “The author David Cohn popularized the saying, ‘the Mississippi Delta begins in the lobby of the Peabody Hotel in Memphis and ends on Catfish Row in Vicksburg,’ concisely capturing the extremes of wealth and poverty embedded in the institution of slavery and the sharecropping system of agriculture.”
Dr. Moore has childhood memories of visiting segregated movie theaters and health clinics. At the time, she didn’t realize racial restrictions were in place.
“So, in many ways, our parents sheltered us from certain aspects of life in the deep south,” she said. “Even so, my sister and I were fascinated by what we saw on the news, especially the riots in Detroit in 1967. We had two childhood friends visiting relatives there and we were so concerned about their welfare.”
Dr. Moore said she was influenced and inspired by the generation of civil rights activists who made a great impact in the Delta, the southern region and across the nation as a whole.
She said traveling is essential to gain a balanced perspective of one’s place in the world.
“For example, here in the southern region, there are such strong pressures to see ourselves and our communities through the lenses of poverty, racism and all of their attendant consequences,” she said. “Yet, in the New York City boardroom of the Ford Foundation, I met a gentleman who shared his deep love and respect for the region and its people. He, like so many others of his generation, came to the Mississippi Delta to participate in the Civil Rights Movement.”
Dr. Moore’s new acquaintance said the experience of participating in the social movement dramatically changed his life, leading him to make a life-long commitment to social change and justice in the broader society.
“I feel we should talk about and celebrate the myriad of ways in which this region, broadly defined – not just in Arkansas or Mississippi – has impacted the nation and world through its literature, music and even advances in democratic governance. Democracy is not just something we study in the textbook, but a living, dynamic, vibrant system through which we define ourselves and each other. Notwithstanding current challenges to our democratic system of governance, this region has made America a better place for all people.”
The University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff offers all its Extension and Research programs and services without regard to race, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, age, disability, marital or veteran status, genetic information, or any other legally protected status, and is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer.
UAPB News 