Letter of Invitation

To Our MSU Colleagues and Students and Members of the Brazilian Community:

Please join us on November 7th for Global Encounter: Brazil, a landmark discussion among members of the MSU community--faculty, staff, students, administrators, visiting international scholars and professionals--and the local Brazilian Community. MSU has had a varied and rich involvement with Brazil for decades through faculty and student presence here and abroad, cutting-edge research and scholarship, and active engagement and partnership. Many MSU faculty members worked to establish and improve programs of higher learning in Brazil during the 1960s and 1970s. There remains a highly positive image of MSU among Brazilian academicians, administrators, students, and MSU alumni in Brazil. Currently, our faculty includes one of the largest concentrations of expertise on Brazil among US and European universities with considerable existing programming in the form of faculty research collaborations and, to a lesser extent, study abroad programs and internships. This is the time to build on the participation of hundreds at our Global Encounter and other recent developments related to our international activities. You are invited to help build the next pieces of these relationships as we shape MSU's strategic engagement in Brazil.

We will come together from 9:30 a.m.-3:00 p.m. in this Brazil-specific Global Encounter event to help identify partners, programmatic themes, and research and instructional opportunities where MSU can have transformational impacts in the decades ahead and can benefit from reciprocal relationships. For discussion purposes, part of the session will be structured around several broad themes designed to encompass the vast array of interests at MSU, including these interdisciplinary emphases:

1. Environment, Technology, and People (land use, urbanization, media/telecommunication, and agriculture)
2. Political Economy, Commerce, and Global Relations
3. Cultural Hybridizations: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Ethnicity, Race, Class, Gender, Age, Language, Literature, and Nation in Brazil
4. Bio-economy and Development (renewable resources, bio-engineering, and agriculture)
5. Health and Educational Disparities

Participants will also focus on issues related to various stakeholders, e.g., Brazilian alumni, MSU students, students from Brazil, and the MSU/area community. At this event, you will have the opportunity to think collectively about MSU's future leadership and partnerships in research, education, and outreach in a crucial part of the world.

Your input is a key to charting MSU's new directions. We urge you to register on-line at the Global Encounter: Brazil web site (www.isp.msu.edu/globalencounter/brazil), which includes the schedule.

Persons registering by November 2 will receive complimentary lunches. We will also post selected items on the Web site that will inform our discussion, so you can plan to read them in advance. In the weeks and months ahead, we will continue to shape and implement the ideas that emerge from Global Encounter: Brazil.

Global Encounter: Brazil is flexibly structured and interactive. Whether you can come for only a few hours or the entire session, your perspectives and ideas will be integrated with those of other participants and will help ensure that our university will be the premier world-grant institution of the 21st Century.

We are justifiably proud of our history of MSU's longtime engagement in Brazil and our markers of success--our study abroad programs, our record of research and outreach in a wide range of disciplines; our past and present linkages with Brazilian universities; our course offerings, including enhanced language instruction; and our Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Center for Advanced Study in International Development, and Women and International Development. With success, however, comes the challenge to examine current directions against future trends and needs. This is critical to expand our international reach and create a sustainable presence in the world, as called for in President Simon's strategic plan, Boldness by Design.

We look forward to seeing you at this agenda-setting event.