Inside Islam: Dialogues and Debates has won one of the Sixth Annual Brass Crescent Awards, citing “a groundbreaking effort by the University of Wisconsin, Inside Islam has built a blog concurrent with podcasts and a radio show with the help of its students.” This award puts the Inside Islam team among the most influential Muslim bloggers from all over the world!
The Brass Crescent Awards started in 2004 with the purpose of promoting the best writing of the Muslim Web and exposing it to a greater number of readers. Awards are given on an annual basis, based on the Islamic calendar.
Inside Islam: Dialogues and Debates is a joint project of the UW-Madison’s international and area studies centers and Wisconsin Public Radio’s Here on Earth: Radio Without Borders. The project, spearheaded by Global Studies, is supported by a grant from the Social Science Research Council in New York City.
Brittany Killian Awarded $6,000 to Study in Beijing
Brittany Killian was recently awarded a $6,000 scholarship from the U.S. Department of Education, International Education Program Service – Fulbright-Hays Groups Project Abroad (GPA) Project: Advanced Chinese Language Training Programs. She will be studying abroad spring 2010 through International Academic Programs (IAP) at the CIEE Study Center Intensive Chinese Language program in Beijing.
The CIEE scholarship program was created with funding from the U.S. Department of Education Fulbright-Hays Projects Abroad to provide scholarship funding to qualified CIEE program participants that intend to continue advanced studies in the Chinese language and pursue a career in academia or public affairs following their semester or year with CIEE in China or Taiwan.
According to the latest data reports, China is the third most popular destination for study abroad students across campus. International Academic Programs currently offers eleven programs in China. If you would like to learn more about programs in China, visit IAP’s Web page.
If you would like information about additional UW-Madison Fulbright-Hays funding opportunities specific to graduates and faculty, visit the Fellowship office.
Congratulations, Brittany!
Great Festivals of Japan: Experiences Abroad
Meet alumni abroad correspondents, Jeff Oloizia and Neal Vermillion. Follow their journeys abroad on the Badgers Abroad Blog. Below is an entry from Oloizia who highlights festivals in Japan.
Great Festivals of Japan: Awa Odori
Step outside the glass doors of Tokushima Station on any day of the year, and you may not be overwhelmed by what you see. Buses pull in and out of the station trading commuters on their way to work, a small shopping arcade looms ahead with only a smattering of retired ladies and truant students meandering about its wares, and a great bank of vacant taxis sits and waits for a rush of traffic that will likely never come. It is, after all, the capital of what some consider to be Japan’s most rural prefecture.
Step outside these doors between the 12th and 15th of August, however, and you’ll be in for something wholly different. Suddenly the station area has become a smorgasbord of noise and color. Packs of women dressed in beautiful kimono smile as they pass you, their wooden geta clopping pleasantly on the pavement. They know the secret. Distant taiko drums shake you and mark out the beat of your own footsteps as the bright yellow taxis now whiz by. Already you can hear the singing: “Odoru aho ni miru aho; onaji aho nara odoranya son son!”
It’s a fool who dances and a fool who watches; if both are fools, you might as well dance!
Continue to read this entry and follow the Badgers Abroad Blog.
WPR News Headline — Although more international students are enrolling at American universities, the UW-Madison has actually seen its numbers drop this year.
The Institute of International Education reports foreign student enrollment nationwide has gone up eight percent, for an all time high of about 672,000 students.
Jason Jonely is the Assistant Director for International Student Services at UW-Madison and says they’ve seen a decrease in the number of foreign students this year. International student enrollment is 3,787 this year, down from last year’s enrollment of around 4,200. He says the state of the world economy may be to blame. He says one of the countries with a declining enrollment is South Korea, where the won has decreased in value against the U.S. dollar.
Jonely says except for a slight drop after the events of September 11, the number of international students at UW-Madison had been steadily increasing.
The most foreign students at UW-Madison come from China, followed by South Korea and India.
UW-Madison ranks 19th among American universities that have at least 1,000 international students. UW-Milwaukee ranks 155th.
Lodi’s International Education Week Broadens Students’ Horizons [Wisconsin State Journal]
LODI – When Max Love attended the annual International Education Week at Lodi High School as a student there, it fueled his interest in global learning and led to his desire to serve in the Peace Corps in Eastern Europe.
A 2009 Lodi High School graduate, he returned to the event this year as a guest speaker on multicultural and international education. Now a UW-Madison student in Middle Eastern studies, he received a scholarship to study Arabic and wanted to let students know about the opportunities that exist.
“It’s immeasurable,” said Love about the effect of International Education Week.
Read the full article, written by Pamela Cotant, that appeared in the Wisconsin State Journal on November 29. Also, read more about International Education Week at UW-Madison.
In a Few Wor(l)ds: The World Literature/s Conference – December 3-5
In a Few Wor(l)ds: The World Literature/s Conference will happen December 3-5, in the Pyle Center located at 702 Langdon Street. The keynote address, “World Literature in a Post-Literary Age” will be given by David Damrosch from Harvard University on Thursday, December 3 at 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
National and International Speakers include:
* David Damrosch (Professor and Chair, Literature and Comparative Literature, Harvard University)
* Peter Höyng (Professor, German, Emory University)
* Djelal Kadir (Professor, Comparative Literature, Penn State University)
* Paulo de Medeiros (Professor, Portuguese and Comparative Literature, Utrecht University)
* Tania Roy (Assistant Professor, English and Comparative Literature, National University of Singapore)
* Azade Seyhan (Professor, German and Fairbanks Professor in the Humanities, Bryn Mawr College)
* Rebecca Walkowitz (Associate Professor, English and Center for Cultural Analysis, Rutgers University)
The conference is sponsored by the Institute for Research in the Humanities, Global Studies, Center for European Studies, German & European Studies, Center for the Humanities, and many others.
Call for Abstracts & Save the Date: Sixth Annual Global Health Symposium
The Sixth Annual Global Health Symposium titled, “Wisconsin Ideas for Improving Global Health” will be held February 3, 2010, from 5-9 p.m. at the Health Sciences Learning Center, Room1306.
Are you interested or engaged in global health? The UW-Madison Center for Global Health will sponsor its sixth annual symposium to highlight the exciting global health efforts of UW faculty, staff, students, and colleagues from the Madison area and beyond. You are cordially invited to attend, share your work with the UW community, and learn from others.
We welcome presentations and participants from all disciplines that address global health or improving the conditions necessary for health. We encourage presentations from the entire campus including the arts, agriculture, business, education, engineering, health, and social sciences.
Ajay K. Sethi, PhD, MHS, Assistant Professor in the Department of Population Health Sciences at the UW-School of Medicine and Public Health will provide the keynote address based on his work: “Addressing HIV/AIDS in Uganda: An Organic Approach”. Dr. Sethi is an infectious disease epidemiologist whose areas of research include HIV, antiretroviral therapy, and substance use. He received his training in epidemiology and molecular microbiology and immunology from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Following the keynote address, participants may select from concurrent sessions featuring brief presentations of global health activities. The symposium will end with a reception, music, and time for networking.
Attendance at the symposium is free of charge, open to the public, and no registration is required. We hope you will join us for an exciting global health symposium.
Please submit an abstract if you are interested in sharing a ten minute presentation or displaying a poster about your global health work.
Abstract Requirements:
Abstracts for posters or presentations should be sent via e-mail to Betsy Teigland at the Center for Global Health, teigland@wisc.edu (300 word maximum).
Abstracts should include: background of the problem and context; description of the project and participants; and outcomes if available. Be sure to include your name, e-mail address, phone number, UW affiliation, the country where you have worked, title for your presentation, and whether you would prefer a presentation or poster.
The deadline for submissions is December 18, 2009. You will be notified of the status of your application by January 8, 2010. For more information, please contact Betsy Teigland at teigland@wisc.edu or at 608-262-3862.
UW-Madison Ranked in Top 20 of World Universities
According to the Academic Ranking of World Universities – 2009, UW-Madison is once again ranked in the top 20 (#17) of world universities compiled by Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
Check out Global Higher Ed’s articles to read about the complexities inherent in rankings.
The Madison Committee on Foreign Relations (MCFR) and the University of Wisconsin-Madison and invite you to participate in a special event, China Town Hall: Local Connections, National Reflections. The event will take place December 8 from 5:30-8:15 p.m., in the Pacific Room at the Edgewater Hotel located at 666 Wisconsin Avenue. Registration is required (details below). Download full event invite.
The program will open with a lecture by Albert Keidel, Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council on “The Future of U.S.-China Economic Relations.”
Following Dr. Keidel’s presentation in Madison, we will join a national Web cast from Washington, D.C. featuring Kurt M. Campbell, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. Steve Orlins, President of the National Committee on United States-China Relations, will moderate this 45-minute portion of the program, comprised of a 15-minute talk, followed by a half hour question and answer session with Mr. Campbell – questions will be e-mailed in or taken from the audience members throughout the country.
China Town Hall is a national day of programming on China involving 40 cities throughout the United States. Nationally this event is brought to you by the National Committee on United States-China Relations. Locally, the MCFR and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy (WAGE) organized this event with the support of many units at the UW-Madison including the Center for East Asian Studies, the Wisconsin China Initiative, the Center for International Business Education & Research, Global Studies, and the Division of International Studies.
Agenda:
5:30 p.m. – Doors open for registration and hors d’oeuvres
6:00 p.m. – Keidel’s presentation and discussion
6:45 p.m. – Short break for hors d’oeuvres
7:00 p.m. – Campbell Web cast and Q&A
7:45-8:15 p.m. – Discussion and Networking
Note free indoor parking is available at the Edgewater.
Registration and Payment:
– Sustaining members of the Madison Committee on Foreign Relations (MCFR): Free
– Non-MCFR member guests, including those affiliated with the UW sponsors: $20 at the door
– Attending MCFR members and spouses/partners of members: $20 at the door
– Funding assistance available see below.
If you are planning to attend the December 8 event (without funding assistance), please RSVP to mcfr@tcgcorp.net by Friday, December 4.
Does UW really Suffer from a Dearth of Diversity? [The Cap Times]
UW-Madison’s long-standing focus on “targeted minorities” is a much-too-provincial view of “diversity” in the global world of the 21st century. This narrow approach ignores the many channels through which students are exposed to the wide range of subject matter, ideas, people, cultures, and attitudes that characterize UW-Madison.
For starters, in 2008-09 UW-Madison undergraduates came from cities large and small, spread across Wisconsin’s 72 counties and all 50 states, plus Guam and Puerto Rico, and more than 100 foreign countries.
The most “targeted” of the “targeted minority” groups — African-Americans, American Indians, and Hispanics — included 2,088 students. “Targeted” Southeast Asians added another 528 students. To this must be added the 1,149 Asian-American undergraduates who are not counted among “targeted minorities” but bring with them a rich cultural heritage and unmatched academic prowess.
International undergraduate students numbered 1,335 and came from 106 foreign countries. Their presence offers rich opportunities for UW-Madison students to learn about different cultures and peoples. Add to this the 1,234 undergraduate students who last year participated in campus study abroad programs. An uncounted number of additional students went abroad to study or travel on their own. Other undergraduate students have resided abroad, including 127 U.S. citizens who lived in 35 countries when they enrolled at UW-Madison.
What about graduate and professional students? To the 798 black Americans, American Indians, and Hispanics, we must add the 544 Asian-Americans and 2,136 international students. Many undergraduates have direct contact with these graduate students, who often serve as teaching assistants in large undergraduate courses.
Members of the faculty and instructional academic staff constitute another rich source of diversity. Many of them gained international experience through their teaching and research abroad, as well as their meetings with foreign scholars. This enables them to incorporate that experience into both their teaching and research.
Undergraduate and graduate students alike benefit enormously from the many varieties of “diversity” they encounter on the Madison campus. This exposure is not limited to people from a narrow group of racial/ethnic categories. It goes beyond that to embrace what it is that students learn in their courses, classroom interactions, and extracurricular encounters.
After they graduate, many students motivated by their “Wisconsin experience” quickly gain international experience as Peace Corps volunteers and Fulbright scholars, and through overseas jobs and personal travel. Some of them return later for advanced study and further enrich the international flavor of the campus.
Campus officials continue to voice the largely unsubstantiated claim that employers avoid hiring our graduating seniors for their lack “diversity competence,” which seems to mean the presence of greater numbers of “targeted minorities.” What employers are more likely to want these days is “global competence.” This calls for undergraduate students to develop an appreciation for the diversity of ideas, attitudes, and modes of thinking that come with exposure to the global world in which we now live. That is what a university education is all about.
Engineers without Borders at UW-Madison Wins United Nations Award
UW-Madison News — MADISON – Work on a project to provide a Haitian community with hydroelectric power has won the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s chapter of Engineers Without Borders a prestigious United Nations engineering award.
“This is a huge honor, and it feels really good to have the project recognized at such a high level,” says Kyle Ankenbauer, a civil engineering student and co-manager of the Haiti project. “The award will help generate a lot of momentum behind this project since it’s been recognized by the UN.”
For much of the year, the Saint-Cyr River in northern Haiti is a docile trickle one foot deep. However, when the late spring rains bear down on the Saint-Cyr, the river swells in some points to be more than 30 feet across and 10 feet deep.
This volatility left a sinking feeling in the student members of the UW-Madison chapter of Engineers Without Borders when they realized the extent of the flooding during their trip to Haiti in June to begin building a hydroelectric power generator. The site for the generator was in one of the areas most affected by flooding.
The students rallied to find a safer site, and they are currently working to construct a mini-hydroelectric power generator at the new site, which will provide three to five kilowatt hours of electricity to a school, library and church in Bayonnais, Haiti. The generator will also serve as a pilot project for a larger, 15- to 25-kilowatt generator the group may build for a community clinic currently in design.
Ankenbauer and UW-Madison chapter president Eyleen Chou, a mechanical engineering student, made a trip to Stuttgart, Germany, to accept $22,400 and a gold medal Mondialogo Engineering Award for the chapter.
The award is a UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) and Daimler initiative to recognize engineering achievements aimed at meeting United Nations millennium development goals and fostering intercultural dialogue. The award was presented at the Mondialogo Symposium.
Engineers Without Borders is a nonprofit organization dedicated to serving underdeveloped countries and communities around the world.
In addition to Haiti, the active UW-Madison chapter has projects in Rwanda, Kenya, El Salvador and Red Cliff, Wis. The Haiti project is unique because the UW-Madison chapter is collaborating extensively with other EWB chapters and NGOs. They share the Mondialogo award with Quisqueya University in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Bayonnais native and engineer Kenold Decimus joined Ankenbauer and Chou in Germany.
This is the second time the EWB-UW group has won a Mondialogo award; in 2005, the Rwanda project won a bronze award and about $7,000.
The University of Colorado-Boulder launched the first chapter of EWB in 2000 and a bridge project in Haiti was one of its earliest initiatives. Graduate student Scott Hamel was with the project from the beginning in 2002, and when he came to UW-Madison to pursue a Ph.D. in civil and environmental engineering, he encouraged the EWB-UW group to get involved.
The UW-Madison group did in 2006 and continued work on the bridge project in collaboration with the EWB San Francisco professional chapter (which currently is designing the clinic), a nongovernmental organization in Haiti and a church in North Carolina that now will support a salary for a local community member trained to maintain the hydroelectric generator. In addition to finishing and repairing the bridge after Hurricane Hannah, the EWB-UW group is currently repairing a 10-mile pipe that carries fresh water through Bayonnais and was recently damaged in a hurricane.
For Hamel, the connections he made with local people are why he continued to stay involved with the Haiti project.
“It’s the poorest country in the western hemisphere,” he says. “I feel a sense of responsibility toward people who haven’t had the same opportunities I’ve had, and the people I’ve met in Haiti are my friends now.”
Ankenbauer says the people of Bayonnais want to help improve their community. “We’re simply brining technology to people who are capable of supporting it and using it to better their community,” he says.
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– Sandra Knisely, 608-265-8592, knisely@wisc.edu
CONTACT: Kyle Ankenbauer, ankenbauer@wisc.edu; Giri Venkataramanan, 608-262-4479, giri@engr.wisc.edu
8th Annual International Children’s and Young Adult Literature to be Celebrated at UW-Madison
International children’s and young adult literature will be the focus of an all-day celebration at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Saturday, November 21, 2009, at the Memorial Union, 800 Langdon Street, Madison, Wisconsin.
The conference, entitled “Open a Book … Open a Door … Open your Mind … to the World,” will feature presentations by three internationally known authors – Sylviane Diouf, Rachna Gilmore, and James Rumford, and a scholar of Russian History, Kelly Herold. The opening speaker will be Megan Schliesman, a nationally recognized authority on children’s literature and librarian at the UW’s Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC).
The celebration, designed for educators, school, and public librarians; students and faculty of education and library science; and children’s literature enthusiasts, is an interactive workshop that aims to encourage educators to internationalize their curriculum by incorporating literature that focuses on different cultures from around the world. Held in celebration of International Education Week, a joint initiative of the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of Education to promote programs that prepare Americans for a global environment.
“This year’s [2008] celebration was wonderful as always, and it made me marvel at the different and remarkable energies, passions and windows through which our authors view and create their works..,” says Jean Hildreth, Librarian at the Luxemburg-Casco Middle School, who attended the last years conference. “I anticipate the annual conference with pleasure for months each year, and the reverberations of the experience create a long-term wealth of ideas which I bring to both my job and my personal life for years afterward,” Hildreth says.
In addition to their presentation at the Saturday event, authors Diouf, Gilmore, and Rumford have been invited by First Lady Jessica Doyle to participate in a “Reading Day” at the Governor’s Mansion. School children from Madison, Lodi, Albany, and Cambridge will convene at the Mansion for a one-on-one reading with the author whose book was chosen by the First Lady for her Read on Wisconsin Initiative.
The annual celebration is sponsored by the Wisconsin International Outreach Consortium (WIOC), which includes seven UW-Madison, and two UW-Milwaukee area studies programs. This year additional sponsorship was granted by the UW-Madison Anonymous Fund. Participating attendees for the workshop come from all over the state of Wisconsin, and from Illinois.
The award-winning authors who will be featured during the conference are:
Sylviane Diouf is an award-winning historian. She received a doctorate from the University of Paris and has taught at New York University. She is the author of several academic books which have won critical acclaim and historical prizes, such as Dreams of Africa in Alabama: The Slave Ship Clotilda and the Story of the Last Africans Brought to America (2007). Diouf has written books for younger readers, including the award-winning Kings and Queens of West Africa (2000); and her only fiction book, Bintou’s Braids (2001) published in the U.S., France, and Brazil. Born in France, Diouf has lived in Gabon, Senegal, Italy, and now resides in New York.
Rachna Gilmore is the critically acclaimed Governor General’s Award winning author of numerous books. Her publications include picture books, early readers, middle grade, and young adult novels, as well as adult fiction. Her young adult novel, A Group of One, was named a Jane Addams Children’s Book Award Honor Book, and recommended by the New York Public Library’s Books for the Teen Age List. Born in India, Rachna has lived in London, England, and Prince Edward Island. She now lives in Ottawa where she continues to plark (play, work, lark) at her writing, and dreaming up weird and wonder-filled tales.
Kelly Herold is an assistant professor in the Department of Russian at Grinnell University. She did her undergraduate work at the University of California at Berkeley, receiving a B.A. in Slavic Languages and Literatures and History in 1989. She received the M.A. and Ph.D. from the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at UCLA in 1993 and 1998 respectively. Most recently, Kelly has been doing research in the area of children’s literature, and has taught two tutorials devoted to this topic (2007 and 2008).
James Rumford has studied more than a dozen languages and worked in the Peace Corps, where he traveled to Africa, Asia, and Afghanistan. He is the author-illustrator of Sequoyah: The Cherokee Man Who Gave His People Writing, a 2005 Sibert Honor Book; Calabash Cat and His Amazing Journey; Traveling Man: The Journey of Ibn Battuta 1325-1354; and There’s a Monster in the Alphabet. His most recent book, Silent Music: A Story of Baghdad, has won numerous awards. He lives in Hawaii.
For more information on the authors and the workshop, contact Rachel Weiss, Outreach Coordinator, Center for South Asia, UW-Madison, (608) 262-9224 or rweiss@southasia.wisc.edu.
The Human Rights Initiative Presents a Lecture on Making Climate Change a Health Issue
The Human Rights Initiative invites you to a lecture, “Making Climate Change a Health Issue: The Lancet/University College of London Commission on Climate Change” by Dr. Nora Groce from the University College London, on Monday, November 23 from 3:30-5 p.m. at 206 Ingraham.
Learn more about Dr. Nora Groce
Professor Nora Groce is the Leonard Cheshire Chair and director of the Leonard Cheshire Disability and Inclusive Development Centre at University College London. A medical anthropologist, working in global health and international development with particular emphasis on health and poverty among vulnerable populations, she served as a member of the Lancet/University College London’s Commission on Climate Change, looking at the potential impact of climate change on at-risk populations in the developing world. Professor Groce has published widely, and regularly serves as a consultant to various United Nations, governmental, and NGO organizations.
This is co-sponsored with the Nelson Institute and Global Health.
Faculty Travel Grants In European Studies – Applications due December 9
Center for European Studies is pleased to announce that there are funds available for tenure-track faculty travel grants for conference attendance and international research in European Studies, including:
• Several awards of approximately $600 for travel to conferences within the United States only (no international conferences). To apply, please provide a one-page description of your paper and the conference.
• Several awards of up to $1000 for travel to conduct research (no conferences) in Europe. Please provide a two-page research description and a detailed outline of how the funds will be spent.
Applicants are kindly requested to list other forms of support already obtained or requested. Please note that there are significant restrictions on how the award may be spent, especially concerning airfare. Deadline for submissions is Wednesday, December 9, 2009. Successful applicants must spend their funds by August 15, 2010. There are no exceptions to this expenditure date because the grant expires. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.
For questions, please contact Elizabeth Covington by phone at 265-4778 or e-mail at eecovington@wisc.edu.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s European Studies Alliance is:
– The Center for European Studies
– The Center for German and European Studies
UW-Madison in Top 10 in National Study-Abroad Ranking
by Masarah Van Eyck
Record numbers of University of Wisconsin-Madison students are earning some of their academic credit abroad, with a participation rate that far exceeds the national average. What is more, they are increasingly choosing to study in previously non-traditional destinations such as China and India.
According to the Open Doors report, released Monday by the Institute of International Education (IIE), UW-Madison ranks in the top five for student participation in year-long and mid-length programs, placing third and fourth respectively among all U.S. research institutions for the 2007-2008 academic year. UW-Madison ranks sixth for overall study abroad participation, up three spots from the previous year, with a total of 2,216 participants. UW-Madison students received credit for study in 74 countries around the world, compared to 60 in 2006-2007.
In all, 20 percent more UW-Madison students went abroad in 2007-2008. Nationally, the number of Americans studying abroad increased by 8.5 percent.
“We are especially encouraged to be sending so many students on mid- and year-long study abroad programs,” says Professor Robert Howell, director of International Academic Programs, the largest and central study abroad office on campus. “While short-term programs offer valuable, accessible international opportunities, we want to continue to emphasize longer experiences abroad whenever possible.”
Consistent with national trends, European countries dominate the top five most popular destinations for UW-Madison students. Third on UW-Madison’s list, however, is China, up two spots from the previous year. China is in fifth place nationwide for desired destination.
“I’m thrilled to see that our students recognize how important it is to understand emerging global powers like China,” says Gilles Bousquet, dean of the Division of International Studies. “We hope to make it our students’ most popular destination in the next few years.”
UW-Madison has also remained in the top 20 of research universities for numbers of international students enrolled, hosting 3,910 students from more than 105 countries in 2007-2008.
“UW-Madison has a long-standing tradition of welcoming international students from around the world, a tradition which began as early as 1903,” says Laurie Cox, director of International Student Services. “We are delighted to continue to welcome so many bright and talented international students to UW-Madison and to Wisconsin.”
Chronicle Covers UW’s Int’l Economic Development Taskforce
Universities Offer International Resources to Help Economy at Home
By Karin Fischer
The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 15, 2009
Universities, with their global reach and increasingly international missions, can use their overseas connections and expertise to improve their state and local economies.
That was the argument made by speakers at a panel discussion Sunday on global partnerships and economic development, one of the sessions held on the first day of the annual meeting here of the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, formerly the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges.
In Wisconsin, the president of the state-university system, Kevin P. Reilly, recently appointed a group of educators, business leaders, and economic-development officials to explore how academic know-how could be used to help attract overseas investment to Wisconsin and expand the state’s presence in global markets.
“In a truly global economy, we need to build bridges between our international efforts and our economic-development efforts,” said Gilles Bousquet, one of the Wisconsin commission’s co-chairmen and a speaker at Sunday’s session. “International work and economic development,” continued Mr. Bousquet, who is dean of international studies at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, “are intrinsically linked.”
UW-Madison Students Seek International Life, Outlook
by Masarah Van Eyck
Before leaving for Ireland last September, University of Wisconsin-Madison student Sarah Zink wrote about her expectations of the study abroad experience that awaited her.
“What I really want is an experience I can look back on as being life-changing,” Zink wrote. “I can’t wait to learn about a new culture, be involved in foreign government and find out more about myself.”
Zink is one of about 2,000 students who will earn UW-Madison academic credit in another country this year. A national leader in study abroad participation, UW-Madison offers students in majors from English to engineering the opportunity to experience life in another culture.
But international education doesn’t just happen abroad.
On campus, the Wisconsin Experience provides international exposure – from language learning to international housing to certificates in area studies – so students develop the skills and knowledge they will need to navigate in a global environment.
Experiences such as these will be celebrated next week during International Education Week, which provides an opportunity to mark the benefits of international education and exchange worldwide.
Wisconsin native and UW-Madison alumnus Neal Vermillion, says his undergraduate education in 20th century foreign policy “was a great stepping stone” to his present career as a U.S. consul in Perth, Australia.
“I have the best of both worlds,” Vermillion recently posted to the Badgers Abroad Blog, “an international life and outlook nurtured at UW, and a Wisconsin base which will always be home no matter where I live!”
Greater globalization has increased the demand for international education.
At UW-Madison, students now can earn international certificates in engineering and global health, or enroll in an online course that includes conversation practice, oral exams and oral presentations in Mandarin.
“This is a generation that really gets that the world is global,” says Aaron Brower, vice provost for teaching and learning. “Students are aware that our actions impact people around the world and vice versa. Our job is to provide educational experiences that support this perspective.”
Among the programs that received support in the first round of Madison Initiative for Undergraduates awards are an international internship program, a service to provide better orientation to international students, and international educational opportunities in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.
“This is a key moment in the history of education on our campus,” says Gilles Bousquet, dean of the Division of International Studies. “Our ability to provide students with the highest-quality, cutting-edge international opportunities will determine UW-Madison’s reputation in the next decades.”
Committed to internationalizing the campus, the Division of International Studies will host a series of town-hall meetings for students and faculty next semester to ask the where they would like to see internationalization efforts take shape.
There are a number of international activities during International Education Week, including:
– Nov. 16-22: Global Entrepreneurship Week, a program of Wiscontrepreneur, Office of Corporate Relations. For more details, visit http://www.wiscontrepreneur.org/Global-Entrepreneurship-Week.php
– Nov. 16-20: International Photo Exhibit: International Academic Programs, International Student Services, and Wisconsin School of Business International Programs will exhibit winning international student and study abroad photos from 2009. The exhibit is in the 1974 Gallery of the Red Gym.
– Nov. 17: The concept of “Global Competence” discussed on Wisconsin Public Radio’s “Here on Earth: Radio Without Borders,” from 3-4 p.m.
– Nov. 18: Language Institute’s World Languages Day, 9 a.m.-1 p.m., Memorial Union.
To follow this year’s International Academic Program Study Abroad Correspondents, visit http://blog.studyabroad.wisc.edu/.
To meet students, alumni, faculty and others on the Badgers Abroad Blog, visit http://badgersabroad.wisc.edu/blog.
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WPR’s “Here on Earth” to Discuss “Global Competence” during International Education Week
What is global competence? Can you learn it? How do you know when you have it?
Here on Earth: Radio without Borders, Wisconsin Public Radio’s daily call-in program about all things international, will tackle the notion of “global competence” in its broadcast on Tuesday, November 17 at 3pm (rebroadcast each evening at 9pm).
The broadcast comes during International Education Week, a program of the U.S. Departments of State and Education.
Appearing with host Jean Ferraca will be: Professor Fernando Reimers, Ford Foundation Professor of International Education and Director of Global Education; Professor Larry A. Braskamp, Professor Emeritus at the Department of Leadership, Foundation and Counseling Psychology, Loyola University Chicago, and Senior Scientist at The Gallup Organization where he conducts the Global Perspectives Inventory; and recent UW graduate Catherine Skroch, who presently lives in Morocco. A podcast will also be available after the program.
Tune in!
Here on Earth is supported in part by UW-Madison’s Division of International Studies.
Global Entrepreneurship Week in Wisconsin – November 16 – 22
The University of Wisconsin-Madison – along with more than 1,000 organizations worldwide – will mark Global Entrepreneurship Week during the week of November 15. Led by its Office of Corporate Relations, the university is taking part in a number of events on and off campus, including:
– Entrepreneurial Boot Camp: From November 15-20, UW-Madison students will visit Wageningen University in the Netherlands to participate in its entrepreneurial boot camp. For more information, contact Gitte Schober at Gitte.Schober@wur.nl.
– Briefing for companies on export control: Monday, November 16, 4:30-5:30 p.m. in Room 50 of the MGE Innovation Center, 510 Charmany Drive. Eric Wilson and Adam Briggs of Godfrey & Kahn, S.C. will explain international trade and transactions, including export and import regulations. To attend, contact Pam Munoz at Munoz@ocr.wisc.edu.
– Kenny Dichter: The Original Bleacher Creature: Tuesday, November 17, 7 p.m. at Heritage Hall in Camp Randall. Dichter will share how he turned his passion for sports into a successful venture. For more information, contact Doug Bradley at Bradley@ocr.wisc.edu.
– Third Annual Entrepreneurial Deli: Wednesday, November 18, 6:30 p.m. in the first floor lounge of Sellery Hall, 821 West Johnson Street. This interactive “deli” will feature mini-presentations by several young entrepreneurs on topics important to those considering new ventures. For more information, contact Molly Lahr at director@madisonmagnet.org.
– Wisconsin Youth Entrepreneurs Conference: Thursday, November 19, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. The conference is dedicated to collegiate, emerging entrepreneurs, and to entrepreneurial education. For more information, contact Jordan Leahy at jordanwilliamleahy@gmail.com.
International Studies at UW-Madison 