There's a new club on campus trying to spark global conversations at UNC through small discussions — the UNC-Chapel Hill Institute for Global Development.
Sophomore business and global studies major Daniel Bonomo — who serves as the president — founded the club in the spring of 2019 with the club's senior advisor, Nick Matthew.
Although technically registered as a student organization under the name UNC-Chapel Hill Institute for Global Development, the group prefers to be known as the Global Development Association, or GDA.
Bonomo said the idea came about after talking with friends outside of the Global Studies department.
“I wanted a club that was dedicated to a different take, a different lens on international issues,” Bonomo said.
The club strives to bring students together to engage in student-led discussions concerning global development, including topics like public health disparities around the world and international relations issues like Brexit.
Baker Franklin, a dramatic arts and history major and the club’s treasurer, said he wants it to be a place for the free exchange of ideas and opinions.
“At a school like UNC, I feel like there’s a lot of places for discussion, but not a lot of them are really that open to all the ideas that people throw forward,” Franklin said. “What I really want this to be is a place for hashing out ideas and intelligent discussion that will actually make people look at problems differently and think differently.”
The club meets weekly at Dey Hall at 6 p.m. on Tuesdays. Currently, the club’s meetings consist of informal discussions on whatever the group is interested in. The club's leaders hope to expand to other events in the future, including social events and speakers from UNC and beyond.
