UC Davis welcomes advocacy for students studying abroad

Global Learning Hub and Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies Department enter new partnership

In an effort to bolster a more inclusive community in a time of “unprecedented global change,” the UC Davis’ Global Learning Hub — responsible for advocating for international scholarship outreach — and the Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies Department — which focuses on relevant issues within intersectional and feminist frameworks — have partnered. Their core focus: advocacy for students to study a broad.

They’ve enhanced their promotion efforts by championing students who have previously studied a broad. The students’ main goal is to demonstrate that everyone has a different motivation when studying a broad, but each of them gains valuable insight regarding the world around them, along with personal growth and self-discovery. The students spoke about these experiences at an interest meeting.

“Studying a broad changed the way I think. I learned so much about myself. Being from a small town in the south, I never realized how much I had not done or tried,” Lesslie Bean, a third-year art and wildlife biology double major from Mississippi, said.

Even those who said they may not study a broad again were passionate about the experience. Two alumni now living in the Castro district in San Francisco returned to Davis to speak to prospective students interested in the new initiative.

“Even if I only tried it once, I’m glad I did because I learned that it is not for me,” both of the gentlemen said.

One girl from the student advocacy group responded by mentioning that she, too, had tried it once and realized it may not be for her, though she often wished it could have been.

The various responses inspired others in the crowd to chime in about their experiences. The consensus from many young men seemed to be that they had not yet had the opportunity to study a broad, but they hoped to do so before graduating. There seemed to be a common sentiment that it “turned a boy into a man.”

The university’s growing effort to expand outreach about this program demonstrates an attempt at solving larger social issues on campus. The aim of the program is to create solutions by asking students to push themselves, expand their comfort zones and broaden their horizons. For many students, studying a broad has taught them what they like and do not like, which has translated into their lives well beyond the initial study.

Studying a broad is guaranteed to change every individual, and, as people change, so does the broader culture of UC Davis. This large-scale social impact is just one of the goals the project hopes to achieve. The betterment of individual lives and, in turn, the entire university, reflects an effort to break glass ceilings.

The words of Chad, president of Sigma Chi fraternity, encapsulate the potential this program has.

“I never knew a broad could be so beautiful, so different from me and so truly valuable,” Chad said. “I had no idea. A broad is more than just filled with curves, canyons and valleys.”

Written by: Violet Zanzot— vmzanzot@ucdavis.edu

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