Senior Alumni Gain New Perspectives, Make New Connections through Critical Thinking Workshop

On October 28-31, 27 YES and FLEX alumni from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Kosovo, North Macedonia, and Serbia gathered in Skopje, North Macedonia, for an interactive workshop on critical thinking. Guided by award-winning professor and Executive Director of American Councils’ Center for Global Leadership Dr. Sam Potolicchio, participants learned about the ways in which our brains process, and sometimes tune out, new information, and explored strategies for more effectively observing, processing, analyzing, articulating, and utilizing information.

This core program was complemented by peer sessions led by public health expert Klea Troka (YES Albania ’12), communications specialist Kejsi Kurani (YES Albania ’16), lawyer Selma Lacic (YES Bosnia and Herzegovina ’11), gender expert Krenare Loxhaj (YES Kosovo ’11), soon-to-be doctor of medicine Edina Osmankaj (YES Kosovo ’15), and architect Petar Tatic (FLEX Serbia ’10) in their fields of expertise.  At the end of the program, 100% of participants reported that they had developed personal competencies, such as confidence, communication, teamwork, problem solving, conflict-resolution and leadership, and that they left the workshop “more curious or eager to learn new things.”