Global Understanding

Engaging the World

Chatham joins United Nations Academic Impact Program

Enhancing its mission to engage students in greater global comprehension and outreach, Chatham University has joined the United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI), an initiative which aligns institutions of higher education, scholarship and research with the UN and with each other to address global issues.

Officially launched by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on November 18, 2010, UNAI asks institutions to commit themselves to the fundamental precepts driving the United Nations mandate – in particular the realization of the universally-determined Millennium Development Goals, which range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education, all by the target date of 2015.

"The United Nations understands the enormous impact of scholarship, innovation and ideas," the Secretary-General said. "We are trying to harness that great power to build a better world; a world where human ingenuity will make our homes, communities and consumption patterns socially and environmentally sustainable; a world where research receives the funding and support it needs to defeat disease, deprivation and despair; a world where the 'unlearning' of intolerance will bridge barriers that still divide nations and peoples."

UNAI includes 571 members in 98 countries - a global alliance in which institutions of higher education and research share with the world body a culture of intellectual social responsibility. Participants are expected to commit themselves to a set of ten principles, derived from the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Millennium Development Goals. They are each expected to undertake at least one activity or project every year which tangibly supports and furthers the realization of those principles, which include: