Member Spotlight: Dr. Rose Cardarelli

My journey in education has not been traditional. My parents always placed a high value on education, but I wanted to experience the world, so my first career was as an Army Medical Service Corps officer. In the Army, I had the great honor of serving our nation’s soldiers and wounded warriors from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, but I also had the opportunity to serve as the commander of the Army’s largest training battalion. It was that early career experience that taught me both about selfless service and about the crucial role of education in our modern society.  

Upon leaving the military I became a Professor of Human Security at the National Defense University, traveling to and working with other societies all around the world to improve quality of life; that opportunity showed me so many disparities in human rights and security and powerfully brought back to my mind the benefits of and essential need for equity in education. With these two life experiences, I felt compelled to act, so I started the first of several Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) as I felt my background could best be used to serve the most vulnerable children who had been displaced by so many sad events all around the world.  

My current NGO, the Education for All Coalition, is a partner with the United Nations (UN) and with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). I have also come to serve as a social emotional learning representative to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), an advisor to the Global NGO Executive Committee (GNEC), and as the Rotary International Representative to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), in efforts to stimulate international change for the plight of displaced children. I am also affiliated with several education support organizations and university boards, again to advocate on the part of those children in the most need. 

It was while I was pursuing my doctorate in education from the College of William and Mary that I became a member of KDP, and eventually a member of the KDP Executive Board for two terms. As my NGO collaboration role grew to include various UN agencies, I was asked by KDP’s former Executive Director, Faye Snodgress, to become a KDP UN Representative as well. This role continued with our current Executive Director, Tonja Eagan, and was later expanded to allow me to serve as the lead representative from KDP to the UN. During that period, along with the other UN representatives, I was privileged to represent KDP in many relevant UN education meetings, where I displayed KDP information in booths, contributed to GNEC webinars, participated in numerous UN conference panels focused on education, and was asked to help with the planning of a number of the UN’s other global initiatives. 

Because of these experiences and the programs I participated in that were associated with children and displacement, I discovered that the issue of displacement due to climate migration was a critical topic that desperately needed to be elevated for global action. Understanding the dearth of planning and coordination capabilities in the world today and to help stimulate such effective action, I recently published Children and the Climate Migration Crisis: A Casebook for Global Climate Action and Policy to bring attention to this topic and help develop more effective collaboration against climate displacement. The book addresses the need for understanding climate issues and advocates for more effective collaboration and better focused legislation and policies to protect the increasing number of children affected by this ever-growing global crisis of climate change. It is also critical that teachers and administrators understand the impact that climate events will have on displaced children, their education and overall wellbeing, and that potential solutions must include a foundation of equity, a focus on resilience, and strong adaptability.    

Today, all of my experiences reinforce the criticality of education in our modern world, and I hope that my efforts through KDP will help the most innocent and the most at risk, children displaced through none of their own faults, to develop for them the future that we all deserve. KDP has done so much good, and I am proud to be one of its champions, working everyday for education for all.