Letter of Invitation
To Our MSU Colleagues and Students:
We have had a varied and rich involvement with China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong for decades through faculty and student presence here and abroad, cutting-edge research and scholarship, and active engagement and partnership. In the last few weeks and months, MSU has added to this record significantly.
This is the time to build on the participation of hundreds at our April 20 Global Encounter and other recent developments, including MSU’s designation as home to a pioneering Confucius Institute that will offer online K-12 and adult Chinese language instruction in Michigan and across the United States.
You are invited to help build the next pieces of these relationships as we shape MSU’s strategic engagements in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Please join us on May 18 for a landmark discussion with other members of the MSU community—faculty, staff, students, administrators, and visiting international scholars and professionals.
- MSU Global Encounter: China
- Framing MSU’s Global Engagement for the 21st Century
- Thursday, May 18, 2006
- 8:30 a.m.-2:00 p.m. (Check-in and continental breakfast starts at 8 a.m.)
- Delia Koo International Academic Center, Third Floor
We will come together from 8:30 a.m.–2:00 p.m. in a China-specific MSU Global Encounter event to help identify partners, programmatic themes, and research and instructional opportunities where MSU can have transformational impacts in the decades ahead. For discussion purposes, part of the session will be structured around three themes—education, environment, and food systems—but they will be broadly defined to encompass the vast array of interests at MSU, such as health, human rights, economic development, technology, communications, and the humanities. At this event, you will have the opportunity to think collectively about MSU’s future leadership in research, education, and outreach in a crucial part of the world.
Your input is key to charting MSU’s new directions. We urge you to register on-line at the Global Encounter: China web site (www.isp.msu.edu/globalencounter/china), which includes the schedule and key discussion questions
Persons registering by May 15 will receive complimentary lunches. We will also e-mail you our 2005 China concept paper, which will inform our discussion, so you can read it in advance. In the weeks and months ahead, we will continue to shape and implement the ideas that emerge from MSU Global Encounter: China.
MSU Global Encounter: China is flexibly structured. Whether you can come for only an hour 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 China and our markers of success—our study abroad programs, our record of research and outreach in a wide range of disciplines, our existing linkages with top universities, our course offerings, including enhanced language instruction, and our renowned Asian Studies Center, Center for Advanced Study in International Development and Women in 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.
Jeffrey M. Riedinger
Acting Dean
International Studies and Programs
