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.

Eight UW–Madison Graduate Students Receive Scott Kloeck-Jenson Travel Award

Global Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison has awarded the Scott Kloeck Jenson Award to eight outstanding graduate students whose work will deepen international understanding and global social justice concerns.

The grants given to the eight students are in memory of Scott Kloeck-Jenson and his family. Scott was completing doctoral work on rural poverty in Mozambique province of Zambezia with his family on a Fulbright scholarship. There, he was also the field director for the Land Tenure Center’s Mozambique project. He was due to return to the United States in January 2000 to complete his dissertation with UW–Madison but, tragically, on June 23, 1999, Scott, his wife, Barbara, and their two children, Zoe and Noah, were killed in a car accident in South Africa.

Upon his death in 1999, his remaining fellowship funds and contributions from Scott’s family and friends were pooled to support UW–Madison graduate students. That same year, Global Studies named its annual Summer Travel Grants Program in memory of Scott and has since diligently worked to raise appropriate funds for graduate students competing for the Scott Kloeck-Jenson Award.

To date, 65 UW–Madison students have received the Scott Kloeck-Jenson award.

The following graduate students will conduct their studies in the memory of Scott and his family with their work on social justice issues around the world this summer: Catherine Sikubwabo Honeyman (Educational Policy Studies), Erika Robb (Anthropology), Huai-Hsuan Chen, (Cultural Anthropology), Joseph Harris (Sociology), Karin Butterworth (Cultural Anthropology), Kristen Molyneaux (Educational Policy Studies), Özlem Altiok, Sociology and Rural sociology), and Sarbani Chakraborty (Curriculum and Instruction).

For more information on the Scott Kloeck-Jenson Fellowships please visit global.wisc.edu/skj/

Contact: Steve Smith, Global Studies, University of Wisconsin–Madison, (608) 262-0646, sksmith@wisc.edu

WAGE announces individual research award winners

The UW-Madison Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy (WAGE) is pleased to announce the winners of our 2008 Individual Research Award competition. WAGE will provide $10,000 to support each of three research projects that explore the consequences of and challenges posed by economic globalization and its governance. Four faculty, Allison Christians (Law), Zhongdang Pan (Communication Arts), Yongming Zhou (Anthropology), and Jason Yackee (Law) will pursue important research respectively on tax norms and global governance, Chinese intellectual property rights, and the impact of international investment law on foreign direct investment.

Please join us in congratulating these faculty!

Allison Christians, Assistant Professor of Law
“Tax Norms and Global Governance: A Study of The Emergence and Influence of Transnational Epistemic Communities.”
Although traditional conceptions view taxation as an inherently nationalistic subject, much tax policy today is the product of transnational collaboration, especially within the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).  This research project identifies and analyzes the OECD’s network of tax experts as a pivotal epistemic community, which, despite its nonlegal status, defines issues for national decision-makers, frames legal norms to respond to these identified issues and, ultimately, shapes the focus and content of national law.

Zhongdang Pan, Professor of Communciation Arts
Yongming Zhou, Associate Professor of Anthropology
“Counterfeiting Order: Intellectual Property Rights and Luxury Brand Piracy on a Global Stage”
This project aims to move beyond the existing knowledge of the Chinese intellectual property rights (IPR) regime and to obtain a deeper understanding of its multidimensionality by examining 1) the spatial distribution of IPR infringements, including the making, distribution, and consumption of counterfeits on a global stage; 2) the historical, cultural, and socio-economic factors behind the counterfeiting; and 3) the dynamic power relationships among multiple players (transnational, national and individual) that have played major roles in shaping the IPR today.

Jason Yackee, Assistant Professor of Law
“International Investment Law and the Foreign Investment Decision-Making Process: the View from the General Counsel’s Office”
This project examines how multinational corporations use international investment law to reduce the political risks of investing abroad.  Professor Yackee will survey a large sample of attorneys working in the general counsels’ offices of U.S.-based corporations with overseas operations.  The survey will provide one of the first examinations of how the knowledge and advice of in-house legal counsel about international investment law helps to shape the investment decision-making process.

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.

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.

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.

Into Africa: Holmen grad embarks on medical journey to test skills and help

By JO ANNE KILLEEN for Onalaska Community Life

Natalie Ammerman, a 2004 graduate of Holmen High School, has been accepted as part of a group of professional students to tour Uganda and help in hospitals, medical clinics and pharmacies.

Ammerman, 22, is a doctor of pharmacy candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Pharmacy. The university has an ongoing project in Uganda for pharmacy, medical and nursing students and sends students for three weeks each summer. Ammerman and 15 other UW students will travel to Kampala, the capital of Uganda, on May 24.

“I’m really excited,” Ammerman said. “I’ve never been outside of North America. Even though we’re prepared, we really don’t know what to expect. I don’t think I’ll be ready emotionally for what I’ll see. In America, we don’t see emaciated people sitting on the side of the road. It’ll be a culture shock.”

This semester she’s been in a special, for-credit class focusing on Uganda and its culture. “It gets you in the mood. You learn about different aspects of the country, what it has gone through,” Ammerman said. “After many hours of reading texts and discussing the frustrating injustices of life in developing countries, I am eager to offer my knowledge and skills to those who are greatly in need.”

Ammerman has learned Uganda is a country home to many diverse cultures and problems. “Abducted children are forced to fight as soldiers and are powering a rebel movement to overthrow the government in the northern part of the country,” she said. “The urban settings in Uganda have become crowded with displaced children who have fled their homes to escape abduction. The AIDS pandemic has also left many children without parents or a place to live. Most Ugandans live in extreme poverty and do not have access to the basics standards of living such as food, clean water and health care.”

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.

A shared vision emerges from UW–Madison Reaccreditation Project

by Brian Mattmiller, UW-Madison Communication

The 2009 Reaccreditation Project has reached a critical milestone this month with the completion of six in-depth theme reports that provide a banquet of ideas on how to protect and strengthen the future of UW–Madison.

Beginning Friday, May 9, all six reaccreditation theme reports and an executive summary will be available at Reaccreditation Project.

“I think people are seeing this as an incredible opportunity, enhanced by the upcoming leadership transition, to really rethink what it means to be a great public university in the 21st century,” says reaccreditation director Nancy Mathews, referencing the overall theme of the project.

“Even though we’re overshadowed in some ways by some challenging realities,” Mathews adds, “we’re also overshadowed by a strong sense of optimism: That this is the time to really make some changes and be deliberate about carving out our future.”

Understanding the Culture of Collaboration: An Exploration of Global Research Partnerships

‘Understanding the Culture of Collaboration: An Exploration of Global Research Partnerships’

Friday, May 9 at 8am at the Pyle Center.

Betty Rambur
Ace Fellow, Office of the Provost
University of Wisconsin–Madison
Dean, College of Nursing and Health Sciences
University of Vermont

Abstract:

Global partnerships with multinational teams are increasingly referenced as a means to approach the world’s most pressing problems. This interactive session details an empirically derived conceptual framework that describes seven distinct types of interinstitutional, multinational research partnerships along a range of increasing faculty risk, decreasing stability, increasing human factors with compounding interaction costs, and increasing time to research outputs. Participants will critique the framework and discuss applications and implications in reference to their fields and institutions.

The PowerPoint presentation will be available on the series Web site.  Please ensure that you have access to these slides locally. The talk will also be broadcast live via Web cast and this link can also be accessed via the Web site.

The Ideas & Universities virtual seminar series is co-sponsored by the Worldwide Universities Network, UW-Madison’s WISCAPE, and Bristol University’s Institute for Advanced Studies.

UW to Launch Interactive Radio Show and Web Site on Islam and Muslims in the World

CONTACT: B. Venkat Mani, bvmani@global.wisc.edu, 608-265-2631

UW–Madison’s nine area and international studies programs, in partnership with Wisconsin Public Radio, and the Division of Information Technology (DoIT) have received a generous grant from the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) for an interactive program that will support public dissemination of scholarship on the topic of Islam. The grant is part of SSRC’s project, “Academia in the Public Sphere.”

UW–Madison’s eight Title VI National Resource Centers (Global Studies; African Studies Program; Center for South Asia; Center for South East Asian Studies; Center for European Studies; Center for Russia, East Europe and Central Asia; Latin American, Caribbean, and Iberian Studies; and Center for East Asian Studies) and its Middle Eastern Studies Program will host a 12 month project titled “Inside Islam: Dialogues and Debates.”

Spearheaded by Global Studies, the grant will allow for the production of 8–10 one-hour, call-in radio shows with local and international scholars on Islam, hosted by WPR’s Jean Feraca. Topics may include such subjects as “Islam and Music” and “Women and Islam,” and will address the diversity of Muslim communities throughout the world. These broadcasts will be followed by real-time chats and a blog on the WPR Web site. In addition, they will produce “insideislam.wisc.edu,” a Web site hosted by DoIT.

Madison will host World Stem Cell Summit [Business Journal of Milwaukee]

The Business Journal of Milwaukee, March 12

Just a day after the University of Wisconsin’s patent licensing arm won a government ruling upholding a pair of key stem cell patents, Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle announced Wednesday that Madison will host a world gathering of stem cell researchers, advocates and investors later this year.

The World Stem Cell Summit on Sept. 22-23 willk bring together preeminent researchers, advocates, investors, and other industry leaders to advance human embryonic stem cell research and the resultant technologies.

“Embryonic stem cell research holds the potential to cure some of the world’s oldest and deadliest diseases - from Parkinson’s to Alzheimer’s to multiple sclerosis,” Doyle said. “Stem cell research represents the promise to not only save lives, but to create economic opportunity for innovation and job growth as well.

The World Stem Cell Summit is the preeminent gathering for the entire global stem cell community and will provide critical tools for leadership and advancements for the future of regenerative medicine. Regenerative medicine and stem cell technologies are estimated to become a $500 billion industry over the next 20 years.

The announcement comes the day after the UW-Madison patent and licensing arm, Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, said the remaining two stem cell patents that were challenged by a pair of consumer groups have been upheld by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. A third disputed patent was upheld in a ruling in late February.

The three patents were challenged through reexamination proceedings initiated in October 2006 at the request of New York-based Public Patent Foundation and the California-based Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights.

Fund for late professor lifts Engineers Without Borders into the black

by Kristin Czubkowski, UW-Madison Communications

Students interested in joining Engineers Without Borders can attend the organization’s next meeting at 6 p.m. Tuesday, March 11, in 1800 Engineering Hall.

Katie Simon had a lot to be nervous about in March 2007 when she became the president of the University of Wisconsin-Madison chapter of Engineers Without Borders (EWB), an organization that applies the knowledge of engineers to improving the quality of life for developing communities.
Nearly all of the former officers were graduating seniors soon to be leaving the campus, the organization was nearly $50,000 in debt to the university and the civil engineering professor who had been the lifeline for the organization since its 2004 inception had scaled back his hours helping the group due to illness.

She soon learned that the professor, Peter Bosscher (pictured left, photo by Jeff Miller), was suffering from kidney cancer, and would not be able to be as involved in the group as he had been for the past three years.

“Professor Bosscher was the group,” she says. “It was hard to get used to at first because whenever we had a problem, it was just like, we’ll ask Peter — he always knows the answer. Some of the members nicknamed him ‘The Magic Man’ because if anything happened, he would magically fix it.”

Deadline extended for the UW-Madison/University of Bonn graduate fellowship

The deadline for the UW-Madison/University of Bonn graduate fellowship program has been extended. The new deadline is Noon on MONDAY, APRIL 14, 2008.

There are two types of awards available: one academic year award; several short term awards for research of 1-2 months or one semester in duration, depending on the needs of the research. Research on the short term award must be initiated and completed sometime between September 2008 and August 2009 and must be carried out in consecutive weeks.

Read more about the Bonn fellowship here.

Call for Proposals

Call for Research Circles, Seminar Series, Strategic Speakers, and Development Funds

For complete information on these opportunities, click here.

The International Institute, with generous support from the Division of International Studies and Global Studies, announces a competition for new initiatives in International Studies.

I. Research Circles

The International Institute Research Circles join together groups of faculty, graduate students, and staff to advance research on particular intellectual themes of international relevance. Research Circles will be funded for three years, with starting dates staggered. Up to two proposals will be selected for the first year. The maximum total grant per proposal will be $64,000 with an approximate division of up to $16,000 in the first year, up to $32,000 in the second year and up to $16,000 in the third year.

II. Seminar Series, Strategic Speakers, and Development Funds

New Fulbright Grant Brings Scientists to U.S.

Program aims to improve America’s ability to recruit foreign graduate students.

Read the article in the Chronicle of Higher Education

Researchers examine world’s potential to produce biodiesel

by Madeline Fisher, UW-Madison Communications

What do the countries of Thailand, Uruguay and Ghana have in common? They all could become leading producers of the emerging renewable fuel known as biodiesel, says a study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies.

The ease of manufacturing biodiesel from vegetable oils and animal fats has made it one of the most promising, near-term alternatives to fossil fuels. Seeking to understand which nations are best positioned today to enter the burgeoning biodiesel market, researchers Matt Johnston and Tracey Holloway of the Nelson Institute’s Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment (SAGE) ranked 226 countries according to their potential to make large volumes of biodiesel at low cost.

Scheduled for inclusion in the Oct. 24 journal Environmental Science and Technology, the analysis uncovered many of the usual suspects, including the United States, a top soybean grower; and Brazil, already a major biodiesel producer. The Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and Spain also cracked the top ten in overall volume potential.