The globe is rapidly expanding into an environment of unprecedented global interdependence and responsibility.

Wherever you find yourself in the world: The U.S., China, Vietnam, Turkey, Mexico, Guatemala, Salvador, Peru, Brazil, Indonesia, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, India, Sri Lanka or any of the 50 countries represented at UH-Clear Lake, you as a potential student or scholar will change the international environment with your presence. The world needs strong leadership to meet the challenges of an interdependent world. At UHCL excellent educators, from many parts of the world, with expertise in many languages, promote an education for a diverse society. The location of UHCL in the cosmopolitan city of Houston, with more than 80 consulates, offers an unprecedented opportunity where one can evolve toward world citizenship. As Dr. Michele Kahn, Asst. Prof. of Multicultural Education, puts it: "By viewing ourselves as world citizens we can make our globe a little smaller and our world a lot bigger."

The Office of International Initiatives welcomes prospective and current students, faculty and staff. We are pleased to discuss international issues and answer your questions.

Together we work on an international passport of experience.

SPIRITUS MUNDI, DO WE HAVE IT?
By Ingeborg Hayes-van Zanten

At the main entrance of the Bayou Building, a fabulous work of art, Spiritus Mundi, by the Spanish sculptor Pablo Serrano, emanates the potential world spirit of University of Houston-Clear Lake. The sculpture, consisting of two bronze pieces, was purchased in the seventies when UH-Clear Lake already expressed its international perspective.

A closer look at the art piece reveals hands that are inverted as if those thousands of pounds of the huge Spirit of the World were manually pushed towards UHCL. Other hands with shells, bones, twigs and various shapes on top of the two parts of the world evoke diverse cultural imprints left by students, faculty and staff from around the world for future generations. These hands, fossils, bones and leaves seem to express "Here in this university, embraced by nature, we feel like as human beings our input counts."

The setting of Spiritus Mundi on university grounds with alligators, possums, snakes and bayou radiates respect for an environment that is closely linked with sky and the universe. At the same time that UHCL's integral relationship with NASA links community with the sky and universe beyond, faculty and students explore social, cultural and spiritual linkages with colleagues and peers from around the planet. In the midst of such an environment, Serrano's Spiritus Mundi nourishes human reflection and inner harmony as it invites us to connect our large inner world with global perspectives to enrich our intellectual tradition.

At UHCL, the Office of International Initiatives was formed in 1990 and now in 2008 UHCL pulses with a presence of students, faculty and staff from more than 55 countries, thus contributing to increased possibilities and solutions for a global brain of humanity. Spiritus Mundi, we have had it from the very beginning. Embracing this spirit continues to move many toward a future of choice and prosperity, to unfold dreams and beautiful expansions of a world in the making. Every time we integrate cross cultural learning, every time we enroll an international student, every time we encourage study abroad, every time we hire international faculty and staff, every time we connect with the community, every time we give a voice to those who otherwise might be left behind, every time we further international components in the curriculum and in our relationships we say "yes" to the emergence of that Spiritus Mundi.