MSU International - Volume 2, Spring 2001

ISP News

Governor Engler in Japan

Michigan Governor John Engler poses with his family (front row center) during a November 2001 visit to the Japan Center for Michigan Universities (JCMU) on Lake Biwa, Shiga Prefecture, Japan. Also pictured are JCMU faculty, staff, and students (including Brian Swanland, JCMU resident director), as well as Dawn Pysarchik (ISP associate dean), John Hudzik (ISP dean), Glenn Stevens (executive director of the Presidents Council, State Universities of Michigan), and, from the Governor's Office, Jill Murphy (chief of protocol) and Rachel Siglow (executive assistant). Engler was in Japan to attend the Ninth International Conference on the Conservation and Management of Lakes in nearby Otsu. MSU operates the JCMU as administrative and fiscal agent for the 15 public Michigan universities.

ECLAC

In late September 2001, MSU and the U.N. Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) cosponsored a conference in Santiago, Chile, on "Social Capital and Poverty Reduction in Latin America and the Caribbean: Toward a New Paradigm." Well over 300 people, including researchers and government representatives from 17 countries, attended the conference. The MSU delegation of nearly 20 individuals was headed by President Peter McPherson and included ISP Dean John Hudzik and a number of faculty members involved in MSU's Social Capital Initiative, including codirectors Lindon Robison and Marcelo Siles. MSU participants pictured in this photograph are Ren� Hinojosa and Celina Wille (fourth and fifth from left). For more information, go to http://www.ssc.msu.edu/~internat/cepalconf.

Delia Koo, Outstanding Philanthropist

Delia Koo, recipient of the 2001 Outstanding Philanthropist Award, is congratulated by MSU Trustee Dorothy Gonzales at the Alumni Grand Awards Ceremony on October 11, 2001. The annual gala event is sponsored by the MSU Alumni Association. Koo has been a strong supporter of International Studies and Programs, including providing funds for the third floor expansion of the International Center. (See article in the spring 2001 issue of MSU International at http://www.isp.msu. edu/international/2-1/2.html

MSU to Participate in Humphrey Fellowship Program

Michigan State University has been selected to join 12 other major U.S. universities for participation in the prestigious Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program. The program, named after former U.S. Senator and Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey, Jr. (1911-78), is a nondegree program that brings midcareer professionals in leadership positions from around the world to select U.S. campuses. Once in residence, they participate in rigorous and tailored academic and professional development activities over the course of a ten-month period.

MSU's first-year cohort of approximately 10 Humphrey Fellows is slated to arrive on campus in August 2002. Each participant will be funded by a stipend covering travel, tuition and fees, living allowance, and limited professional development activities such as conference attendance. Similar size groups will be on campus during subsequent years.

At MSU, the Humphrey Program will be coordinated by the Center for Advanced Study in International Development (CASID) with Director Jeff Riedinger acting as faculty coordinator. "This is an extraordinary opportunity for MSU and CASID," remarked Riedinger, who spearheaded MSU's application process along with International Studies and Programs Assistant Dean Murari Suvedi. "The breadth and depth of our faculty and course offerings and the availability of faculty mentors were critical to our success in being awarded the designation of host institution."

According to Riedinger, the new five-year agreement designates MSU as one of two Humphrey Program hosts in the area of economic development. The other 11 participating institutions are designated hosts in thematic areas such as agriculture and rural development; drug abuse education, treatment, and prevention; journalism and communication; public administration and public policy; public health policy and management; and urban and regional planning.

Over the 24 years of the federally funded program, 39 U.S. universities have been home to more than 2,800 Humphrey Fellows from 135 countries. Host universities, chosen through a competitive application process, are typically "large, research-based institutions with a known track record for successful and flexible international program capacity," according to the official guidelines for applicants. "These centers of academic excellence are strategically situated to insure the Fellows' access to the cutting edge in research and practice in their specialities." The U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs is the program's primary funding sponsor and has final decision on which institutions participate.

The Humphrey Fellowship Program is administered through the Institute of International Education, which performs a similar function with the Fulbright Program. U.S. embassies or Fulbright commissions in participating countries nominate Fellows, who must then be approved by the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. Fellows are selected for their potential as policy makers and future leaders, as well as for their academic and professional qualifications. Approved Fellows are reviewed by one of the universities in the appropriate thematic area and ultimately paired with a faculty mentor at the receiving institution. More information about the Humphrey Fellowship Program is available at http://www.iie/org/pgms/hhh/

CLEAR Receives Third Grant Supporting Foreign Language Education

Teaching and learning foreign languages will get a boost from a new four-year grant to MSU from the U.S. Department of Education in the latest round of the Title VI Language Resource Center grant competition. The grant, to begin in August 2002, was awarded to the MSU Center for Language Education and Research (CLEAR), the Title VI National Foreign Language Center housed in the College of Arts and Letters. Funds will support CLEAR's continuing activities to strengthen the teaching and learning of foreign languages in the United States.

CLEAR has been funded to date under Title VI for two three-year grant cycles, beginning in 1996, with each grant cycle bringing in approximately $1 million. Professors Susan Gass and Patricia Paulsell of the Department of Linguistics, Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African Languages are co-authors of these successful grant proposals and codirectors of CLEAR.

For more information about CLEAR's projects, see articles elsewhere in this issue.

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