FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
6/30/09
CONTACT: Jim Delehanty, jmdeleha@wisc.edu, 608-262-4458
MADISON – This week, the University of Wisconsin-Madison African Studies Program is taking 15 high school social studies teachers and curriculum planners from across the United States to Rwanda for 30 days.
This endeavor is made possible by the Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad from the United States Department of Education.
The teachers, most of whom hail from Wisconsin, will focus their attention on the theme of youth and development, and will incorporate topics ranging from coffee production, water hauling, Rwandan popular culture, and the Rwandan diaspora into five comprehensive learning expeditions. The African Studies Program is partnering in this project with Expeditionary Learning Schools Outward Bound (ELS), a national nonprofit educational organization.
The group will visit five cities, including the capital city of Kigali, with video cameras, audio recorders, and photo cameras in tow, to meet with Rwandan educators, students, and community leaders. While traveling, participants will post entries on the Badgers Abroad Blog. The curriculum the teachers produce will be available online later in the 2009-10 school year.
Sharon Hutchinson, director of the African Studies Program and specialist in the cultures of East Africa, will travel with the group as a project leader and cultural specialist. Two staff members associated with the African Studies Program will also assist the group.
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- Masarah Van Eyck, mvaneyck2@international.wisc.edu, 608-262-5590
Local Iranian citizen reacts to protests, unrest
[Note: Mirsharifi is a doctoral student in UW-Madison's Second Language Acquisition (SLA) program. She is teaching in the university's summer Arabic & Persian Immersion Program (APIP) coordinated by UW-Madison Global Studies. ]
Link to story here.
View news video here.
Mirsharifi teaching at UW-Madison; photo WKOW
MADISON (WKOW) — Fatemeh Mirsharifi teaches Persian at a special language immersion program at the UW this summer.
She’s also from Iran, the only member of her family not living in the country.
She drove to Milwaukee last week to vote in the Iranian presidential election. She says the Pakistani Embassy arranged for a special balloting process at a Best Western motel there.
“I think it’s the beginning of a revolution,” said Mirsharifi. “It’s the beginning of a new thing for Iran.”
She says she voted for the opposition candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi.
“Most of the Iranian youth hate Ahmadinejad. They really do not like his politics. We think this is not the real vote. They are just cheating. This is our beliefs.”
E-mail Dan Cassuto at dcassuto@wkowtv.com.
Know Your Madisonian: Cynthia Haq, UW-Madison Center for
Global Health
From the Wisconsin State Journal
June 6, 2009
Dr. Cynthia Haq directs UW-Madison’s Center for Global Health, formed in 2005. It includes students and faculty from the schools of medicine, nursing, pharmacy and veterinary medicine.
Haq also heads up the medical school’s new program in Milwaukee, called Training in Urban Medicine and Public Health. She lives in Madison and Milwaukee.
Q: What are the main programs of the Center for Global Health?
A: About 200 to 300 students a year take global health courses, and about 150 a year go into the field. Our programs are primarily in Mexico, Ecuador, Uganda and Thailand.
In Thailand, students are looking at the public health infrastructure. For a fraction of the money we spend here, the health outcomes there are almost as good. In Uganda, we’re training family doctors and nurses to take care of the whole spectrum of problems. All of Uganda has 2,000 doctors. We have 2,000 doctors here in Madison. Students are also building water tanks in rural villages. In Ecuador, students are helping to build up secondary hospitals.
Q: Why should people in the Madison area care about global health?
A: Throughout Wisconsin, we’ve seen increasing numbers of immigrants. A couple of years ago, a guy working at one of the restaurants on State Street had active tuberculosis for at least six months. He happened to be from North Africa. We also see patients with advanced malaria. If physicians are aware of global health trends, they can do a better job with their patients.
Global health looks at disparities within and across borders. At UW Hospital, we have the best medical facilities in the world. But in Dane County, we have 40,000 people who are uninsured and don’t have access to it.
Q: How did you become interested in global health?
A: My father came from India, and my mother was from Indiana. I grew up partly in Pakistan. When I became a doctor, I wanted to focus my efforts on where the needs were greatest.
Q: What does the swine flu outbreak say about global health and preparedness?
A: It’s a great example of a global health issue that could have an enormous impact on all of our lives. Look at HIV/AIDS. It went from an almost unheard-of disease to a global pandemic affecting almost 30 million people.
Q: What can people here do to help solve global health problems?
A: They can volunteer at free clinics or homeless shelters or join organizations such as UNICEF or Care International. They can donate to philanthropic foundations. They can elect officials who understand our connections to the rest of the world.
— Interview by David Wahlberg
Read more about Dr. Haq on the Badgers Abroad Blog.
Thanks to the superb writing of Mai Chou Her and the other UW-Madison Student Correspondents, LexioPhiles has nominated the Badgers Abroad Blog among the Top 100 International Exchange and Experience Blogs from around the world!
Cast your vote for the Badgers Abroad Blog here!
CIBER’s Applied Funds program provides grants of up to $2,000 to support travel, conference registration, and participation in faculty development programs.
Deadline:
Monday, June 1
Eligibility:
All University of Wisconsin faculty, academic staff, and Ph.D. students are eligible to apply. All Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa Community and Technical College instructors and administrators are eligible to apply.
Award Criteria:
Requests for funding in the Applied Funds program must relate to one or more of CIBER’s programmatic goals:
- Internationalizing the curriculum by increasing the number of interdisciplinary courses, adding international content to existing courses, and expanding study abroad and other international exchange opportunities for students. CIBER is especially interested in funding proposals that will enhance the global content of the full-time MBA curriculum.
- Creating faculty development and enrichment programs for business, foreign language, and international studies faculty from colleges and universities around the nation, such as low-cost international study tours and faculty development conferences and workshops.
- Collaborating with foreign language departments to develop business language courses for students and to provide intensive language training programs for business people. CIBER is particularly interested in critical languages as defined by the federal government (such as Arabic, Chinese, Farsi, Hindi, and Russian).
- Funding research projects, events and publications on issues of strategic national interest. In addition to international competitiveness issues, CIBER is interested in proposals that address how business is responding to the challenges created by global terrorism. CIBER also favors proposals related to the hi-tech and biotech industries, which have been defined as key sectors for Wisconsin’s export strategy.
- Creating and sponsoring business outreach and training programs to enhance the ability of U.S. business to compete internationally.
Additional Information:
For details about this program, including additional award criteria and how to complete and submit an application, please visit the CIBER Web site: http://www.bus.wisc.edu/ciber/facphd/grants.asp. Please contact CIBER Outreach Director Suzanne Dove at sdove@bus.wisc.edu should you have any questions.
June 16, 2009
11:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.
Fluno Center for Executive Education
Skyview Room
601 University Avenue
Mexico is Wisconsin’s second-largest trading partner and currently faces a convergence of economic, political and social uncertainties. Companies with existing or potential ties to Mexican markets need to understand this situation and how it may impact their business. Join us for a timely discussion of these issues, including: the causes and potential solutions to violence on the U.S.-Mexican border, how Mexico’s economy is faring in the current worldwide downturn, and what steps U.S. businesses can take to maintain a strong export presence in Mexico.
Speakers
Sigrid Emrich, acting counselor for economic affairs, U.S. Embassy, Mexico City
Miguel Noyola, principal, Baker & McKenzie LLP, Chicago
Jorge Prieto, sales director for Asia and Latin America, BouMatic
On Wednesday, May 6, Joan Spero, UW–Madison alumna and an expert in philanthropic issues, addressed an audience that included students, faculty, and community members. She spoke about the impact of Global Philanthropy and U.S. Foreign Policy at home and abroad.
Watch her talk now in our video library!
Click here for more information about the event, and here for pictures from the event.
CONTACT: Gary Sandefur, 608-263-2303, gsandefur@ls.admin.wisc.edu
MADISON – The University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Letters and Science has received the first $400,000 of a $2.5 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (http://www.mellon.org).
The grant will establish 12 faculty positions for teaching and research in the humanities focused on the interdisciplinary crossings and connections between the West and Asia: the Middle East, China, the Indian subcontinent and the Pacific Rim nations. The college will assume compensation responsibility after three years.
The university is among a select group of public research universities with traditionally strong programs in the humanities. The grant will enable UW-Madison to maintain its prominent academic presence in the study of the historical, social, religious, linguistic and literary relationships between and among these regions.
The new faculty will expand the scope and reach of the humanities by offering fresh perspectives on the realities of 21st century relationships through the study of changing patterns of influence throughout history. The grant also will expand programming in the university’s humanities centers and institutes, including the Mellon-supported Center for the Humanities, the Institute for Research in the Humanities and the Language Institute. By supporting new faculty and graduate students and enhancing existing programs, this initiative will encourage curricular flexibility, new models of collaboration, team-teaching and transnational outreach.
“The world is becoming increasingly complex and interconnected through technology and economic growth. Given this reality, the humanities are more important today than ever because they help us understand the global landscape,” says Gary Sandefur, dean of the College of Letters and Science. “This generous gift from the Mellon Foundation will help make the University of Wisconsin-Madison a leader in defining our past, understanding the present and envisioning a brighter, more humane future.”
Since the 1990s as the global landscape has changed, the nature of scholarship in the humanities has changed with it. Work has flourished at the crossroads of disciplinary divisions, cultural exchange and intellectual dialogue. UW-Madison anticipated this change more than 15 years ago through the creation of a number of cross-disciplinary centers and research “clusters.” Today, the university’s leadership in this transdisciplinary evolution is reflected in its reputation for excellence and the number of institutions emulating this model.
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CONTACT: Kenneth Zeichner, 608-263-4651, zeichner@education.wisc.edu
MADISON – Kenneth Zeichner, the Hoefs-Bascom Professor of Teacher Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction and associate dean of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education, has been elected to the prestigious National Academy of Education (NAEd).
The NAEd (http://www.nae.nyu.edu) seeks advancement of the highest quality education research and its use in policy formulation and practice. Founded in 1965, the Academy consists of up to 200 U.S. members and up to 25 international associates who are elected on the basis of outstanding scholarship or outstanding contributions to education.
Since its establishment, the academy has sponsored a variety of commissions and study panels that have published proceedings and reports. Members also are deeply engaged in NAEd’s professional-development programs, such as the NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship Program and the Predoctoral Fellowship in Adolescent Literacy administered with generous funding from Carnegie Corp. of New York.
“The National Academy is the most selective group of scholars in education. We’re very pleased that Professor Zeichner’s intellectual leadership has been recognized in this way,” says Adam Gamoran, interim dean of the School of Education and a member of the NAEd.
Zeichner serves as the School of Education’s associate dean for undergraduate, international and teacher education. His scholarship and teaching focus on teacher education, teacher professional development and practitioner research, and he has published internationally on these issues. read more…
CONTACT: Doreen Adamany, 608-262-2353, dadamany@education.wisc.edu
MADISON – Madison, Wis., will become the world’s dance hot spot May 28-31 when the University of Wisconsin-Madison Dance Program hosts the World Dance Alliance-Americas (WDAA) General Assembly.
Individual dance artists, dance groups, educators and students from more than 15 countries and throughout the United States will gather. Participants are expected from Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, England, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Kenya, Latvia, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad, Venezuela and the West Indies.
But this is a conference with a public kick. Traditional conference activities such as paper presentations and lectures will take place for the attendees, but organizers want the community to participate to explore the question: What moves us? To make sure that happens, an abundance of classes, demonstrations and performances are open to the public, including classes in Israeli folk dance, Sufi dance rituals, musical theater and dance, and hip hop. Samba-curious? Classes will be held on the UW-Madison Memorial Union Terrace, 800 Langdon St., for three consecutive nights, so people can give African (May 28), samba (May 29) or salsa (May 30) a try. read more…
UW Madison Student Serves as Correspondent for National Geographic; Talks with Iraqi Refugees
Adam Lichtenheld
In an interdependent society, diplomacy is far too important to be entrusted solely to political leaders and their proxies. As a traveler, writer and journalist, I have sought to do away with the superfluous, superficial and simplistic depictions of foreign places that dominate the mainstream. I use my words to evoke emotions and encapsulate the raw experience of being deeply and meaningfully engaged across cultures and communities. By putting a face on the statistics and the stereotypes, I’ve proposed a more personalized medium to help explain the complexities of our world; mitigating the discontents of our benighted society and providing a catalyst for enlightening dialogue. In my nomadic wanderings–from the jungles of East Africa, to the mountains of Western Europe, to the deserts of the Middle East–I’ve found a potent mixture of calm and calamity, and discovered that inspiration comes from the unknown, the unexplored and the misunderstood.
Where I’ve Lived Abroad: Amman, Jordan – Cairo, Egypt – Kampala, Uganda – Geneva, Switzerland – Salalah, Oman
Click here to read Adam’s dispatches.
UW Students Get Other Study Abroad Options After Trip Cancellations [WISC-TV]
MADISON, Wis. — University of Wisconsin students whose study abroad trips to Mexico were sunk because of flu concerns are being offered other options.
Last Friday, university officials canceled the trips this summer because of the so-called swine flu, or H1N1 virus, outbreak.
To compensate, UW officials have set up alternate plans to replace the Mexico trip. However, for some students like junior Nora Alpers, it’s just not the same.
“We had just gotten the information about our families and so I was really excited,” she said. “I was getting to that point where I was ready to go and I could see everything coming into place.
“Venezuela and Spain were offered as alternatives, but the trip would be two weeks shorter and cost more than $1,000 extra.
May 26 and 27
Tong Auditorium, Engineering Centers Building
University of Wisconsin – Madison
Registration is free.
Spring Workshop of the WAGE Managing Import Safety Collaborative
This workshop is designed for business, government, and nonprofit professionals, and open to the academic community.
ABOUT THE EVENT:
This conference will address food import safety from a variety of perspectives including systems analysis, infrastructure resilience, governance and policy analysis. Two morning plenary talks will set the stage by covering the origins of adulteration and contamination in rapidly developing economies, and by examining import violations found at both port and land-borders. An industry panel will address consumer opinion and several aspects of supply chain, supplier management, and self governance, including supplier agreements. Another panel will discuss cost-effective sampling schemes, testing and detection technology advancements, and testing limitations. European speakers will discuss approaches from the European Food Safety Authority and European Commission to regulate safety in imported foods, including the rapid alert system. A second day panel will be chaired by a well-known industry spokesman for food safety, who will be speaking to the way forward. This will include discussions of global approaches to food protection, as well as different forms of governance, including third party oversight.
For more information on speakers and topics, please review the conference agenda at this link and below.
To register: Send an email with the following information to chpra@engr.wisc.edu: Name, Title, Affiliation, Mailing Address, Telephone Number, Fax Number, and E-mail
The conference is free-of-charge but space is limited.
Sponsoring organizations at the University of Wisconsin-Madison:
Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy (WAGE)
Center for Freight Infrastructure Research and Education (CFIRE)
Center for Human Performance and Risk Analysis (CHPRA)
Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER)
China Initiative
College of Engineering
Department of Engineering Professional Development
Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
European Union Center of Excellence (EUCE)
Food Research Institute (FRI)
Based on the recommendations of the university’s International Emergency Response Committee, Chancellor Biddy Martin is instructing campus units to cancel student programs in Mexico that are scheduled to depart before June 1.
Programs that will not be operating include a language program in Oaxaca affecting 25 students; a nursing program based in Taxco involving eight students; a Guadalajara program for one student in the area of master’s in public health; and a School of Business program in Monterey involving one student.
Given the importance of international academic experiences to students’ educational goals, UW-Madison is working with units in which programs are canceled to find alternative experiences that will allow them to achieve their academic objectives.
In addition, the university has reaffirmed an April 29 decision recommending that all students, faculty and staff defer travel to Mexico until further notice.
The university’s International Emergency Response Committee (IERC) asks students, faculty and staff who must travel to Mexico before June 1 for university business, whether academic, nonacademic or research-related, to contact the university’s pandemic response team at pandemicinfo@mhub.uwpd.wisc.edu.
The IERC will meet in the final week of May to determine whether these measures should be extended beyond June 1 or be lifted. The IERC would be happy to answer questions regarding these recommendations.
Please contact the following committee members for more information:
- For medical issues: Dr. Sarah Van Orman, director, University Health Services, svanorman@uhs.wisc.edu
- For legal issues: Lisa Rutherford, director, Office of Legal Services, lrutherford@vc.wisc.edu
- For issues relating to affected study-abroad programs: Rob Howell, director, International Academic Programs, rbhowell@wisc.edu.
Meina Cai, Political Science
“Unpacking the Miracle of Private Economy: The Micro-foundations of Chinese Business-State Relationships.” - Awarded $1,500.
Paulina Calfucoy, Developmental Studies
“Productive Development Policies in Chile: Constraints and Opportunities for Export Diversification in an Open Economy” - Awarded $1,500.
Rodolfo Elbert, Sociology
“Post-Neoliberal Development? A Labor-centered approach to the Argentinean Developmental Model (2003-08)” – Awarded $200 to supplement LACIS award.
Po-Yi Hung, Geography
“Constructing Landscape for Post-Socialist Development: Transnational Tea Trade, State Governance, and Ethnic Minorities in Southwest China.” – Awarded $1,300.
Julia McReynolds, Sociology
“Primary Care Centers in Argentina: Rebuilding the State’s Safety Net” – Awarded $1,500.
Globalizing the ‘Bologna Process’: Looking Closely at Europe’s ‘Looking Out’ Strategy for Higher Education
Professor Susan Robertson, University of Bristol
In this presentation I look closely at globalization of Europe’s Bologna Process (otherwise known as the external dimension) that is altering the terms and terrain of higher education both within and beyond Europe. I argue that there are distinctive phases in this project of creating a unified higher education area, the latest involving the ‘extra-regional’ (neighborhood economies; distant strategic domestic economies; old colonial relations and networks; new inter-regional formations – see Robertson, 2009). The ‘extra-regional’ in the European project is given momentum driven by a combination of forces and projects: Europe’s claim to contingent territorial sovereignty (Elden, 2006) and state-hood; Europe’s extension of its political project in relation to other geo-strategic claims; the usefulness to domestic actors in neighboring and more distant economies of Europe’s higher education tools for brokering internal transformations; the desire of globally-oriented export and import higher education institutions and domestic economies beyond the borders of Europe to align their architecture and regulatory frameworks to maximize market position; and the emergence of Europe’s normative power on the global stage. I conclude by suggesting that in the case of Europe, this current moment of regulatory regionalism might be best conceived of as ‘regulatory state regionalism’.
The PowerPoint presentation will be available next week on the series website: http://www.wun.ac.uk/ideasanduniversities/seminars.html. You can also contribute to the discussion in advance of the seminar on the series blog: http://ideasanduniversities.wordpress.com/
The talk will also be broadcast live via webcast and this link can also be accessed via the website http://www.wun.ac.uk/ideasanduniversities/seminars.html
There was no well-worn path leading the late Kamaluddin Ahmad to the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s biochemistry department, but come he did. Born and raised in a family of modest means in Chittagong, Bangladesh, Ahmad excelled at the University of Dhaka and then traveled to Madison for his graduate studies, receiving his Ph.D. in 1949.
He then returned to Bangladesh, where he tackled some of the country’s worst nutrition problems, founding and developing the University of Dhaka’s biochemistry and pharmacy departments and its Institute of Nutrition and Food Science along the way.
Now, to honor his life and work, Ahmad’s children have created the Kamaluddin Ahmad Distinguished Graduate Scholarship, an endowed fund that will allow promising young Bangladeshi scientists to follow in their father’s footsteps.
“By endowing this fund, we want to make it possible for deserving students from Bangladesh of limited means to pursue their Ph.D. at (the UW-Madison) and then return to Bangladesh to teach and/or conduct research at local institutions,” says Ishtiaq Ahmad, Kamaluddin Ahmad’s eldest son. “We believe that a generation of biochemists trained in the most modern methods will contribute greatly to our society.”
That’s exactly what Kamaluddin Ahmad did. Upon returning to Bangladesh, he joined the University of Dhaka, where he initiated a variety of research projects that helped save or improve the lives of thousands of Bangladeshis. Early in his career, he discovered the antibiotic Ramnacin, and then developed numerous other plant-derived drugs to cure local diseases such as shigellosis, which causes diarrhea. read more…
On Wednesday, May 6, Joan Spero, UW–Madison alumna and an expert in philanthropic issues, addressed an audience that included students, faculty, and community members. She spoke about impact of Global Philanthropy and U.S. Foreign Policy at home and abroad. Click here for more information. Video to come.
Concerns about swine flu are prompting possible travel changes for some University of Wisconsin students.
VIDEO: Watch The Report
Reports from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, World Health Organization and the U.S. State Department have cautioned people against traveling to Mexico because of swine flu, and that could mean some changes for students planning to study there.
Mexico is suspected to be the center of the outbreak.
The one UW-Madison student who was studying in Monterrey, Mexico, this semester has left the city, and UW-Eau Claire announced Tuesday it has canceled its study abroad programs to Mexico.
UW-Madison is now deciding whether it should take action as well.
Student Stephanie Balgeman was planning to head for Oaxaca, Mexico, in three weeks to study abroad, but she said she isn’t sure now if the program will take off or if she wants to go.
“I’m just monitoring it. It’s become like a second homework for me,” said Balgeman of her recent research on swine flu. “It’s hard, because I don’t want to put myself in danger, especially for my family, I don’t want them to lose me because I’m being selfish and want to go to Mexico.”
UW-Madison is now considering whether to send 34 students to three locations in Mexico for the summer.
“We have programs in place and students hope to take part in them, so we want to make sure that we don’t act rashly,” said Rob Howell, director of International Academic Programs at UW-Madison. “We want to make sure that we make the determination at a point when we’re really sure of what the situation is.
“UW-Madison will have to decide before May 17, when the first program in Mexico is set to start.
“We’re also looking for alternative programs, too, to provide students with an array of potential alternatives to help them to meet their academic goals and also so that they can have this study abroad experience,” Howell said.
Balgeman said she will keep watching for developments until she has to make a decision.
“Right now, it’s a yes, but if it gets dangerous a week or half a week before, it’s going to be a no,” Balgeman said.
Balgeman said she is concerned she might not be able to get a summer job if she has to stay home from her abroad program, and she’d lose a scholarship on top of it. She is hoping to transfer to another program if hers is deemed too dangerous.
At UW-Eau Claire, Karl Markgraf, the director of the Center for International Education, said staff decided Tuesday to pull the six-week program involving 23 students starting May 26. Instead, staff is working on a comparable program to Costa Rica.
One student at UW-Stout is studying in Mexico and apparently is fine. School spokesman Doug Mell said two UW-Stout students who planned to study in Mexico this summer have decided to study elsewhere or cancel plans.
The sole student in Mexico through a current study abroad program at UW-Platteville returned because of the outbreak and is OK.
At UW-Green Bay, officials said a two-week study tour by education students who were to observe schools in Mexico at the end of May has been postponed indefinitely. UW-Green Bay has two students now in Mexico.At UW-Oshkosh, a four-week program to Mexico starting May 24 is being moved back to July 5.
The school has recommended the two students there currently return, but it’s not required.
