Report Offers Advice for Colleges on Building International Partnerships [Chronicle of Higher Education]

A major new challenge facing the United States is the deterioration of positive relationships with several major regions of the world, according to a new report from the American Council on Education. The report, “International Partnerships: Guidelines for Colleges and Universities,” outlines considerations that institutions should take into account in building partnerships in that climate and provides sample agreements covering many types of partnerships.

The report was written by Jack Van de Water, a former dean of international programs at Oregon State University, and two council staff members: Madeleine F. Green, vice president for international initiatives, and Kim Koch, a program associate. It is the second working paper in the council’s series on higher education in a global context.

An earlier report in the series found that despite a growing consensus that it is important to educate students about different countries and cultures, colleges were making “uneven progress” in their efforts to internationalize their campuses. —Charles Huckabee for The Chronicle of Higher Education

World Stem Cell Summit offers registration discounts to UW-Madison community

The UW-Madison Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Center (SCRMC), WiCell Research Institute and Genetics Policy Institute are co-sponsoring the 2008 World Stem Cell Summit on Monday and Tuesday, Sept. 22-23, at the Alliant Energy Center.

The SCRMC and WiCell will help supplement summit registrations for a limited number of UW-Madison faculty, staff, students and trainees. This supplemented fee will be on a first-come, first-served basis. Once the allotted number of registrations is reached, this option will no longer be available on the Web site. UW-Madison affiliates should click on the UW link at the top right of the main summit registration page.

This gathering unites representatives from the entire stem cell spectrum. The World Stem Cell Summit brings together the founding visionary researchers, clinicians, business pathfinders, key policymakers, regulators, advocates, and experts in law and ethics. These experts will present compelling presentations, share information and together chart the future of regenerative medicine.

A special day of free, public science outreach titled “Lab on the Lake” will kick off and complement the summit on Sunday, Sept. 21, at the Pyle Center. More information about Lab on the Lake appears on the main summit Web site.

For the complete agenda, visit this site.

Registration includes access to all sessions, lunch on Sept. 22 and 23, and the Sept. 22 night awards dinner. The World Stem Cell Report, a compilation of more than 30 original articles from international experts in the stem cell field, is also included with your registration. Examine the full table of contents here.

Leader of Indian university visits UW-Madison

As part of an ongoing effort to forge stronger ties with leading educational institutions in India, the University of Wisconsin-Madison is hosting P.K. Abdul Azis, the vice chancellor of India’s Aligarh Muslim University, on campus today and tomorrow, Aug. 7-8.

While on campus, Azis will meet with top university officials, including Chancellor John Wiley, and officials from the UW Foundation and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. Discussions will center on increasing the amount of academic and professional exchange between the two institutions.

Azis’ visit comes during the final weeks of the Khorana Program for scientific exchange, a program that brings promising Indian scholars to work in top UW-Madison labs for the summer. The exchange program is a first-of-its-kind partnership between UW-Madison and several universities in India. Two of this summer’s scholars are from Aligarh Muslim University.

“Dr. Azis is a dynamic individual moving an iconic university into the 21st century,” says UW-Madison biochemistry professor Aseem Ansari, one of the founders and co-director of the Khorana Program. “It’s our privilege and pleasure to host him on our campus and discuss future collaborations.”

While the Khorana Program is in its second summer, program co-director Ken Shapiro, an associate dean in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, says the goal is to expand the program in the future by sending UW-Madison students to India.

“We would also like to establish industry connections to be able to give students from UW and from India the opportunity to obtain internships in leading companies in both countries,” Shapiro adds.

For The Record: Engineers Without Borders [WISC-TV]

WISC-TV’s Neil Heinen talks with members of a University of Wisconsin-Madison group who are making life significantly better for the people of Rwanda.

Click here to watch the video.

UW-Madison grad student to meet with Nobel laureates

by Renee Meiller, UW-Madison Communications

University of Wisconsin-Madison nuclear engineering doctoral student Rachel Slaybaugh never dreamed she’d have the opportunity to chat with a Nobel Prize-winning physicist — much less several of them.

Yet, from June 29 through July 4, Slaybaugh will join nearly 500 young researchers from around the world at a unique meeting in Lindau, Germany, that draws 25 Nobel laureates for lectures, panel and roundtable discussions, and social and networking events.

Since 1951, the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting has created a forum for dialogue and scientific collaboration among participants from more than 60 countries.

Led by UW-Madison Engineering Physics Assistant Professor Paul Wilson, Slaybaugh’s research group nominated her to attend the meeting. The selection process included application screenings at the university, national and international levels. The U.S. Department of Energy is sponsoring Slaybaugh, who, coincidentally, is in Germany to conduct Ph.D.-related research at Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, a research laboratory in Karlsruhe.

Slaybaugh, who also is pursuing a Ph.D. minor in energy analysis and policy, is studying the total statistical error present in computer simulations of nuclear systems. She says she is excited about the number of opportunities she will have to talk with the Nobel laureates.

“I hope to expand my perspective and reexamine my focus,” she says. “I hope to learn things that I am not anticipating I will learn — really new and interesting ideas. I also hope to come away with some new friends and contacts within my own scientific peer group.”

From Molecular Science to Political Science: Pasteur Internship Introduces Students to Global Public Health

By Masarah Van Eyck, Division of International Studies

Trucks, cabs, and horse-drawn carts compete for space with pedestrians and even goats below the skyscrapers of downtown Dakar, Senegal. But passing through the iron gates into the Pasteur Institute’s garden courtyard, one is greeted by a bust of Louis Pasteur himself and the air settles into a certain calm.

In the medical virology building, UW-Madison undergraduate student and Mineral Point native Dean Sayre greets me from the other end of the hallway–a tall, shyly smiling 22-year-old in jeans and a Bucky Badger t-shirt. After a tour of the facility from Sayre’s supervisor Dr. Kadar Ndiaye, we descend the stairs for lunch on Gorée Island. Leaving our halting French behind us, Sayre begins to relax into speaking and he easily offers up statistics to put his work and newly discovered passion in context.

“It’s estimated that 600,000 kids die a year around the world from rotavirus,” Sayre says. “And more than 80 percent of those kids are in Africa and Asia.”

Contrast this with the 40 or so deaths per year from the virus in the U.S.

Faced with the disparity between the state of healthcare in Senegal versus his native U.S., Sayre is far from defeated. If anything, it has made him a more devoted researcher.

“It’s not that more people are infected in Africa,” Sayre explains, “it’s just that more die from the virus. Today there are two licensed rotavirus vaccines in the world, but they are primarily available in Europe and the Americas.”

“That’s what’s really interesting,” he continues, “the tools are actually out there to avoid this.”

Those “tools,” he has come to understand, are not just the vaccines engineered in labs like his. Equally important are programs like the PATH Rotavirus Vaccine Program, established to bring vaccines to the populations that need them most urgently.

UW Welcomes New Chancellor With Global Vision [Message from the Dean]

Dear Friends,

As some of you may know, the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents recently named Dr. Biddy (Carolyn A.) Martin, provost of Cornell University, as the next chancellor of our campus.

We are delighted. Both Dr. Martin’s background and vision indicate that she understands how important it is for this great research university to sustain its global stature and to prepare globally competent citizens and leaders to whom we will entrust the fate of our planet.

A UW-Madison alum, Dr. Martin earned her PhD in German literature here in 1984. She sees a bright future for the campus, and recognizes the role a global public research university can play in addressing global challenges and improving the quality of life for all residents of Wisconsin.

“Despite all of the problems and challenges, there is an emerging knowledge economy across the globe,” says Dr. Martin. “Higher education has never been more important. The numbers make it apparent how absolutely critical UW-Madison is to the economic well-being of the state of Wisconsin.”

Her timing could not be better. This year select faculty and staff have worked hard to come up with a strategic plan for UW-Madison as it moves forward. They established “Creating Global Citizens” and “Shaping the Global Agenda” as two clear goals for our future. In rethinking the role of the public research university, the self-study team recommended a new place for Wisconsin in the world:

The responsibility of the UW-Madison in the twenty-first century to benefit both the people of Wisconsin and the global community represents a powerful opportunity to leverage alignments of local and global work. We envision an implementation of the Wisconsin Idea in which the state of Wisconsin becomes our laboratory for the world, and in which the world is our laboratory for Wisconsin. The research and education achievements of the UW-Madison on behalf of and in concert with the people of Wisconsin will be internationally recognized and respected.

We look forward to working with Chancellor Martin in ever improving UW-Madison’s reach and service to communities in Wisconsin, the nation, and around world.

Cordialement,

Gilles Bousquet

UW-Madison’s ‘African Storyteller’ premieres on ResearchChannel

On June 18, the ResearchChannel began airing “The Storyteller with Professor Harold Scheub,” the story of Sheub’s remarkable experience with African storytellers.

Forty years ago, Scheub, a professor of African languages and literature at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, walked thousands of miles along the southeastern coast of Africa recording native storytellers of the Xhosa, Swati, Ndebele and Zulu peoples.

In this program, Scheub tells the story of his journey and of the storytellers through his original photography, video and audio recordings. View the program on demand.

This program is a single channel video delivered via the Web using eTEACH. eTEACH is a new technology developed at UW-Madison that allows instructors to create dynamic and engaging course presentations that sync PowerPoint with audio and/or video.

ResearchChannel was founded by a consortium of leading research and academic institutions to share their valuable work with the public. ResearchChannel is now available to more than 30 million U.S. satellite and cable television subscribers, and more than 1.6 million visitors visit its Web site each year. The channel is also available on 70 university and school-based cable systems in the United States and the world. Viewers can also access programs online via a live webstream and an extensive video-on-demand library.

Wisconsin Attends International BIO Convention

From Wisconsin Technology News

Madison, Wis. - A state that has experienced historic floods and the announcement of a major plant closing within the past two weeks could use some good news. Perhaps it’s found in the steady growth of Wisconsin’s biotechnology industry.

When the Wisconsin delegation shows up on the floor of the San Diego Convention Center for this week’s BIO International Convention, it will have fresh success stories to swap with the 20,000 or so attendees. Since the last BIO convention in Boston in May 2007, Wisconsin has chalked up the following:

• Madison-based TomoTherapy opened trading on the Nasdaq National Market with an initial public offering of shares that generated $185 million in net proceeds.

• Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche acquired NimbleGen, a Madison-based firm, for $272.5 million. NimbleGen’s employees appear to be staying put in Wisconsin.

• The U.S. Department of Energy announced it would locate a $135 million federal laboratory on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus to study cellulosic ethanol and other biofuels. It is one of only three such DOE labs in the nation, and Wisconsin’s first new federal lab in generations.

• The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation began to fend off legal challenges to its key patents for human embryonic stem cell breakthroughs. WARF’s initial success cooled initial fears in some quarters that its patents would be overturned.

International Exposure Leads UW Student to Form Innovative Student Group on Stem Cell Research

By Dana Bedessem, Division of International Studies

Bundled-up students file into the Paul Ebling Symposium Center with wind-burnt red cheeks and noses, brushing off the snow before finding a seat among the crowd. The auditorium is loud with chatter - mostly about the blizzard they had all just braved to make it to this special event. The lights go down and a wave of silence rolls across the auditorium. Adrenaline pumping music booms through the walls and a series of sharply colored power point slides begins with, “We’re here to make a difference, to make things better, to educate ourselves, each other, and the WORLD.” The momentum rolls on and the crowd is mesmerized.

Blame this hypnotic state on the ambition and passion of UW-Madison senior Adam Ericsen and his new student organization, Discussions on Advancing Regenerative Therapies (DART). UW-Madison is leading the country in stem cell research and its companion fields under the world renowned research of Gabriela Cezar (picture at right), Clive Svendsen, James Thomson and other faculty. Ericsen founded DART under the teachings of these scientists. The four initiatives of DART are: education and outreach, classroom outreach, to provide a constructive outlet for ambition, and to develop international research prospectives. DART aims to provide every student, despite their major, with the international resources to conduct regenerative research and ask questions to find their own answers while bridging the gap between professors and students.

“It’s student organizations like DART that are necessary for undergraduate students to take the first step in realizing their own full potential,” says Dean of the Division of International Studies, Gilles Bousquet. “Today that potential must entail a significant degree of global competence that DART encourages.”

Kikkoman to Open Research Facility at UW [The Capital Times]

Kikkoman Foods Inc. will establish a research and development laboratory as well as an environmental studies scholarship in cooperation with the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The new lab, which will open this fall, will be located at University Research Park in Madison. It will be led by one of the company’s research scientists from its research and development facility in Noda, Japan.

“This laboratory will become an important part of our worldwide R&D network,” said Yuzaburo Mogi, chairman and CEO of Kikkoman Corp., at a press conference in Milwaukee.

“We chose Madison after a careful evaluation — in large part because it has access to key resources such as highly experienced researchers in our field. And it is rapidly becoming a center for high technology ventures in the food industry.”

The company also announced that the Kikkoman Foundation is granting $100,000 to the UW to be used for environmental studies scholarships at the college’s Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. Any undergraduate student pursuing environmental studies through the institute will be eligible for the annual grant, although preference will be given to students from Wisconsin’s Walworth County, home of Kikkoman’s first U.S.-based manufacturing facility for naturally brewed soy sauce.

How Networks Impact the Myanmar, China Disaster Responses

The recent disasters in China and Myanmar underline the network aspects of the crisis response, says emergency management expert Donald Moynihan, associate professor at the Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Organizations from all over the world are trying to work together to provide basic services. Their capacity to succeed depends a good deal on the level of cooperation they receive from the governments of China and Myanmar.

“In Myanmar, in particular, the government has obstructed the flow of information about the scope of the problem, and has prevented aid organizations from establishing a coordinated approach,” Moynihan says.

“The government has, in effect, weakened the ability of responders to learn about the nature and location of needs, and to understand how they can best combine forces with other responders,” he adds. “The lack of trust the government has shown toward aid agencies has weakened the range of skills and resources the crisis network can bring to bear to respond to the situation.”

Moynihan has just published the book “The Dynamics of Performance Management: Constructing Information and Reform.” He also has expertise on how emergency responders learn from their performance during and after crises.

Moynihan is available to speak with reporters about international crisis response and can be reached at (608) 263-6633, dmoynihan@lafollette.wisc.edu.

FROM: Karen Faster, (608) 263-7657, kfaster@lafollette.wisc.edu

Diplomats in a Global Age: Panel Discussion

Please join us to hear firsthand how three UW-Madison visiting diplomats-in-residence each dealt with a challenge or crisis that arose during their diplomatic career. The panel, comprised of John Campbell, Alfred Defago, and Florence Chenoweth, will also speak more generally of the challenges faced by ambassadors and diplomats in a globalizing world.

This event is brought to you in partnership by the Division of International Studies and the Wisconsin Alumni Association®.

Tomas Loftus, former ambassador to Norway, will present welcoming remarks. A reception will follow the panel, providing an opportunity to meet the Division of International Studies’ diplomats-in-residence.

Thursday, June 12, 4:00 - 5:00 p.m.

Pyle Center, 702 Langdon Street

This event is free and open to the public.

John Campbell is the former United States ambassador to Nigeria, and is a visiting professor of international studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He most recently served as Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Human Resources.

A career foreign service officer since 1975, Campbell’s overseas postings included Lyon, Paris, and Geneva. He also served as Polcouns at Lagos, Nigeria (1988-1990) and Pretoria/Cape Town, South Africa (1993-96). Assignments at the Department of State have included: dean, School of Language Studies at the Foreign Service Institute, deputy executive secretary, and director of UN Political Affairs.

Florence Chenoweth is the former United Nations Food and Agriculture (FAO) representative to the UN and executive director of the FAO Liaison Office in New York. She is currently a University of Wisconsin-Madison distinguished international visitor. Dr. Chenoweth, a national of Liberia, earned both her master’s degree in agricultural economics (1970) and her doctorate in land resources (1986) at UW-Madison. She became Liberia’s (and Africa’s) first female minister of agriculture at the age of 32, serving from 1977 to 1979. Chenoweth and her family narrowly escaped Liberia after a violent coup, walking across the country to safety in Sierra Leone.

Alfred Defago, the former ambassador of Switzerland to the United States is a visiting professor of international studies at UW-Madison. In addition to his ambassadorship, he has served as consul general of Switzerland in New York. He also served as the director of the Federal Office of Culture, and he was head of the national and economic affairs department of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation. Defago earned his doctorate in history and German literature from the University of Bern, and has studied at the University of Vienna, the German Institute in Rome, and the Vatican Library.

Thomas A. Loftus was the special advisor to the director general of the World Health Organization from 1998 to 2005. Previously he served as the United States ambassador to the Kingdom of Norway from 1993 to 1997. Upon leaving, he was awarded the Grand Cross by His Majesty King Harald of Norway, the highest order of the Royal Norwegian Order. Ambassador Loftus served in the Wisconsin Legislature from 1977 to 1991, serving as Speaker of the House for 8 years. Loftus holds degrees from UW-Whitewater and UW-Madison.

The Division of International Studies is the campus unit charged with formulating and implementing UW-Madison’s internationalization strategy. Its mission is to promote international education, scholarship, and collaboration both on and off campus.

For additional information contact Cynthia Williams: cwilliam@wisc.edu or 608-262-3929.

UW Receives Large Grant from German Government for German and European Studies

Contact: Elizabeth Covington, Executive Director, European Studies Alliance, (608) 265-4778, eecovington@wisc.edu

The Center for German and European Studies (CGES) at University of Wisconsin–Madison has received a grant for $530,000 from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) renewing the center’s funding through 2012.

“Writing a successful grant this time was a terrific challenge because DAAD had decided to shift from a center-focused to a project-focused funding model,” says Myra Marx Ferree, CGES director. “However, our faculty rose to the challenge beautifully, and we put together a compelling package that really spoke to cutting-edge concerns and will allow us to work synergistically across disciplinary lines.”

CGES proposed four international, interdisciplinary plans to DAAD including: After the Violence: The Work of Memory in German Culture and Society (Leader: Marc Silberman); Positioning ‘Modern’ Germany in the World: Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism Colonialism, Migration, (Leader: B. Venkat Mani); Transforming European Governance (Leader: Jonathan Zeitlin); Work, Family, and Education in Europe: Challenges of Globalization and Gender (Leader: Myra Marx Ferree).

DAAD’s reviewers recognized that “social science-based proposals have great potential as break-through ventures for newly integrated knowledge about major social transformations in western societies.” What is more, they wrote, humanities projects represent a “comprehensive effort to broaden existing research in German culture, political history, and mental transformation since the 19th century.”

DAAD established the CGES in 1998 under the German Marshall Plan with matching grants from UW–Madison and the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities. Devoted to the development of the next generation of scholars and the production of new knowledge relating to Germany and Europe, the center supports research, teaching, and outreach in a broad range of fields and disciplines. At the heart of the center’s activities is a unique series of research projects focusing on Germany and Europe from a trans-Atlantic perspective, involving faculty, graduate students, and visiting scholars.

“CGES is a model for cutting-edge social science- and humanities-based interdisciplinary, international research and graduate education,” says Gilles Bousquet, dean of the Division of International Studies. “This highly competitive new award is a tribute to the leadership of Professor Myra Marx Feree.”

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New Exchange Program to Build Bridges Between UW and India

CONTACT: Aseem Ansari, (608) 265-4690, ansari@biochem.wisc.edu

MADISON - Although still recovering from jet lag, a group of 15 undergraduate students from India are getting situated in various labs across the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, where they will spend the summer conducting research.

They are the first official participants in the university’s Khorana Scholars Program, which aims to create new opportunities for promising young researchers in one of the world’s most populous nations.

But the new program isn’t just about giving students a new scientific and cultural experience. Aseem Ansari, a UW-Madison professor of biochemistry who co-directs the program, explains that the Khorana Scholars’ visit is part of a broader effort to forge a closer relationship with India.

“The hope is that this program will lead to stronger ties between the University of Wisconsin-Madison and leading educational institutions in India and to the creation of virtual scientific communities across the globe,” he says.

The students, who hail from seven leading Indian universities, will fan out across campus to join labs in the College of Engineering, the College of Letters and Science, and the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. While the students are expected to have some trouble adjusting to campus life here, organizers of the visit expect that they will return home more adept at navigating American culture-and with a deeper sense of what it means to be a research scientist.

Crossing state lines for material purposes: Cooperation along the I-Q Corridor [Wisconsin Technology Council]

By Tom Still, Wisconsin Technology Council

MADISON – In his book on the plight of the Midwest in the global economy, Richard Longworth of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs laments that Wisconsin and its neighbors worry too much about what’s happening just across the border when the real competition is half a world away.

“When it comes to thinking about economic growth, each state is bound by state lines that were drawn by the Northwest Ordinance more than 200 years ago,” said Longworth, who spoke recently at a Wisconsin Innovation Network meeting in Madison. “But the economy ignores states and state lines.”

Longworth, an Iowa native and former Chicago Tribune foreign correspondent, thinks the Midwest can and must do much better. His book, “Caught in the Middle: America’s Heartland in the Age of Globalism,” concludes that much of the Midwest remains in denial when it comes to building a 21st century economy. Individual states are either too small or too incompetent (his words) to compete with America’s coastal states, the European Union or the economic titans of Asia.

It’s a pessimistic view, to be sure, and countered by a few other scholars who believe the Upper Midwest has most of the basic ingredients needed to compete in the modern “knowledge economy.” But there’s no denying Longworth is correct when he argues the Midwest needs more meaningful policy and economic collaboration. He has called for the creation of a Global Midwest Forum to help make that happen.

Entering the Global Marketplace: Building a Solid Foundation for International Success

The World Trade Center Wisconsin presents an executive briefing on entering the global marketplace, focusing on building a solid foundation for international success. This interactive briefing will be presented by local practitioners in key areas of international business.

For more details, including an agenda and registration information, please click here.

Date: 6/5/2008

Time: 7:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.

Location:
Wisconsin School of Business
Grainger Hall
975 University Avenue
Madison, WI            

UW-Madison Expertise on Beijing Olympics

(Media-Newswire.com) - As China prepares to welcome athletes from around the globe for the Summer Olympics in Beijing, interest in the games and the world’s most populous country is reaching new heights.

From China’s rapidly growing economy to its national identity to what effect the Olympics have on host cities, several University of Wisconsin-Madison scholars can serve as valuable sources for stories leading up to and during the Summer Games.

- Wei Dong, professor of design studies, can discuss his work with a team that studied Chinese architecture, landscape, interior design, and Feng Shui development in China, specifically aimed at sites of significant historic value, and has become a framework for guidelines developed by the Center of Chinese Architecture. CONTACT: ( 608 ) 262-8805, weidong@wisc.edu

- Edward Friedman, professor of political science. An expert in U.S. relations in East Asia, Friedman can discuss Chinese politics, democratization, human rights, international political economy, revolutions and national identity crises. CONTACT: ( 608 ) 263-2272 or ( 608 ) 263-2414, friedman@polisci.wisc.edu

- Giovanna Merli, associate professor of sociology, is a demographer who has studied evidence of unreported births in China. Her current work focuses on the behavioral and social determinants of HIV/AIDS and collecting data in Shanghai to test models for sexual transmission of HIV/AIDS in China. CONTACT: ( 608 ) 263-2211, gmerli@ssc.wisc.edu

- Kris Olds, professor of geography, is an academic advisor and collaborator on a major research project on mega-events and forced evictions. The project by the Geneva-based Centre for Housing Rights and Evictions uses the Olympic Games as an example to study the phenomena of forced evictions connected to preparations for a major international event. The report is available online at: http://www.cohre.org/mega-events. CONTACT: Olds is working in France until July, cell phone 33-6-14-57-18-57, kolds@wisc.edu; U.S. telephone is ( 608 ) 262-5685.

- Zhongdang Pan, professor of communications arts, spent five years teaching in Hong Kong and researching media and social changes in China, including a comparative study of journalists in China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. He continues to collaborate with scholars in China on a study of media reforms in the country and can discuss media effects on civic culture and public discourse in China, as well as the Chinese media system and journalistic practices. CONTACT: Zhongdang will be in China from May 23 to August 21; he can be reached by email: zhongdangpan@wisc.edu or by cell phone ( 608 ) 322-7505.

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Looking Outwards to the Global World: The Drive for Internationalizing Universities in Hong Kong and Asia

Ka Ho Mok
Associate Dean and Professor, Faculty of Social Sciences
University of Hong Kong

Gerry Postiglione
Professor and Head, Policy, Administration, and Social Sciences
University of Hong Kong

8:00 a.m. – 9:30 a.m.
The Pyle Center, 702 Langdon Street
This program is free and open to the public
Coffee and light refreshments will be provided

This presentation is part of the Ideas and Universities International Video Seminar Series, which is made available on the UW–Madison campus thanks to funding and support from the UW-Madison Division of International Studies, the Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of Bristol (UK), the Worldwide Universities Network, and WISCAPE in cooperation with the UW–Madison Department of Educational Policy Studies.

The program theme for the spring 2008 semester is “Universities as Organizations: Looking Inwards, Looking Outwards.”

Web tool puts wildlife diseases on the map

by Tom Sinclair, UW-Madison Communications

A new online map makes it possible, for the first time, to track news of disease outbreaks around the world that threaten the health of wildlife, domestic animals, and people.

The Global Wildlife Disease News Map was developed jointly by the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

Updated daily, the map displays pushpins marking stories of wildlife diseases such as West Nile virus, avian influenza, chronic wasting disease, and monkeypox. Users can browse the latest reports of nearly 50 diseases and other health conditions, such as pesticide and lead poisoning, by geographic location. Filters make it easy to focus on different disease types, affected species, countries, and dates.

The map is a product of the Wildlife Disease Information Node (WDIN), a five-year-old collaboration between UW-Madison and two federal agencies, the National Wildlife Health Center and the National Biological Information Infrastructure, that are part of the U.S. Geological Survey. WDIN is housed within the university’s Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and the USGS.