What is the role of Universities in Global Citizenship?

What can Universities do in Global Citizenship?

When we think about Global Citizenship we do not restrict the concept only to the University community, however, do universities have a special role in developing Global Citizenship? How could they spread their ideas outside University boundary?

First of all, we need to think about the concept of public education itself. In concept, education is fundamentally about developing citizenship equipping people with the skills to recognize their differences and work them in peacefull ways. So, one of the main ideas of public education is provide skills to citizens solve their problems in pacific ways. The importance of education is so evident that basic education became a basic human right nowadays.
Besides, understanding how educational system interacts with social context is important to provide guidance in public education aligned with human beings goals.
Beyond the basic public education we have advanced cultural centres. However, once not every one can engage in a university,what can universities do in global citizenship?
In my opinion, universities can be extremely important in this scenario, fundamentally they are useful to guid three main pillars:
First, they are responsable for develop knowledge through research. It means people with deep knowledge in their areas able to understand causes and consequences. Researches who can study the process of globalization itself, for example, and develop studies about it.
Second, universities should promote critical thinking, it is the ability of people thinking by themselves and create their own conclusions about facts, concepts and theories;
and third, spread ideas. University must be able to spread its ideas beyond its boundary. Why?Because the process can be considered completely successfull only if we could apply their results in those who are not members of the university community. It is...the real world!

In the video below The Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future attempted to answer these questions during a recent seminar with Jay Halfond, Dean of Metropolitan College and an associate professor of administrative sciences at Boston University, Robert Hollister, Dean of the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts University, and Fernando Reimers, a Ford Foundation professor of international education and director of global education and international education policy at Harvard University talk about what role universities play in the meaning of global citizenship, and how universities can help to foster it.