This academic year, the Global and Area Thematic Initiatives program (GATI) is funding a third annual series of innovative multidisciplinary projects aimed at strengthening MSU leadership in international studies. Since 1998, gati has funded 15 faculty-student projects with grants up to $15,000.

Among the major achievements that gati helped to fund in the 1999-2000 academic year were two major conferences in spring 2000. Professor Lindon Robison (Agricultural Economics) and Research Specialist Marcelo Siles (Institute for Public Policy and Social Research) organized the conference, "Social Capital: Bridging Across Disciplines" and Professor Norm Graham (James Madison College and Center for European and Russian Studies) organized a conference entitled "Challenges of Democratization and Economic Liberalization in South Africa, Nigeria, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, Korea, Poland, and Hungary."

Professors Tracy Dobson (Fisheries and Wildlife) and Anne Ferguson (Anthropology) also used GATI funds for a well-attended speaker series on gender and environmental issues, which helped jump-start a new graduate specialization in Gender, Justice, and Environmental Change (GJEC), one of the few such concentrations in the United States. Inaugurated in spring 2000, GJEC seeks to promote collaborative research, scholarship, and public awareness of the links between gender, social and environmental justice, and environmental issues. It is designed to examine these from local and global perspectives, challenging traditional dichotomies between the First and Third Worlds. It also integrates perspectives from the natural and the social sciences.

In many cases, GATI has added an international dimension to topics where MSU has expertise in the domestic arena, such as the issue of aging and eldercare. Professors Nan Johnson (Sociology) and Jacob Climo (Anthropology) used GATI funds to host a workshop in spring 2000 that brought together domestic and international experts on these issues. Results from a spring 1999 conference were published this summer in two special issues of the Journal of Family Studies edited by Johnson and Climo.

GATI-funded groups have also generated major grants and contracts. Most recently, the World Bank renewed a contract with the Social Capital Initiative to maintain a World Bank Web site on social capital and poverty alleviation.

The Asian Studies Center has now joined the other previously involved Title VI-funded centers (the African Studies Center, Center for Advanced Studies in International Development, Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and Women and International Development) in providing management and funding for GATI. Matching funds are provided by the Office of the Provost.

GATI encourages new approaches by funding conferences, workshops, speaker series, and other activities that will bring together faculty and students from across disciplines and geographic areas. Groups are chosen for their innovative approaches and potential to build nationally prominent research and teaching programs at MSU.

Proposals for the 2001/02 academic year will be reviewed in spring 2001. Interested faculty are encouraged to call or write Adán Quan, GATI coordinator, at 517.353.1690 or quan@msu.edu. For more background on GATI, see http://www.isp.msu.edu/international/1-1/5.html.

-Adán Quan