U.S. Department of Education sent this bulletin at 03/13/2013 04:07 PM EDT
International and Foreign Language Education (IFLE) News
Investing in Our Global Future
Volume 1, Issue 3 - March 2013
Dear Colleagues,
Recently, OPE/IFLE (Office of Postsecondary Education/International and Foreign Language Education) sent a blast email regarding our new OPE/IFLE leadership and the status, as far as we know at this point, of our funding situation for FY 2013. In case you missed the blast email, I’d like to take this occasion to re-cap what was sent.
Dr. KimOanh Nguyen-Lam is now serving as Director of the Advanced Training and Research Division. She joined OPE/IFLE on June 11, 2011. On February 10, 2013, we were joined by Dr. Sonia Feigenbaum who will serve as Director of the International Studies Division in OPE/IFLE. Both Division Directors bring new and informed insights to OPE/IFLE in its overall mission of meeting the national need for expertise and competence in foreign languages and area or international studies. The OPE/ IFLE staff and I are excited to have them on board and I am certain that you will be as well, as you get to know them. I would encourage you, if you have not already had the opportunity, to meet or talk with them directly by telephone or email with any questions or ideas you wish to share about our OPE/IFLE programming. And, of course, you also should feel free to contact me with any of your concerns or questions.
We still await final decisions on the FY 2013 budget. At this point, the Department has adopted a policy to hold the continuations harmless with regard to any reductions caused by the sequester. This means that, even if we don’t have enough to fully fund OPE/IFLE continuations, we must use all the money we have to fund them as fully as possible. For OPE/ IFLE, holding the continuations harmless results in OPE/IFLE not being able to conduct any new competitions for Title VI programs (i.e., at this point, we will not be able to run the UISFL [Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Language] competition). The Fulbright-Hays programs -- Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad and Group Projects Abroad-short term -- will compete in FY 2013.
The funding status of Title VII (FIPSE International) programs is uncertain at this time. The 5% reductions resulting from the sequester apply to FY 2012 funding levels, which, for the FIPSE International programs, was very low as it was only intended to fund NCCs (Non-competitive continuations) for one program (EU-Atlantis). In addition, there are issues to be resolved related to funding commitments to other FIPSE programs which may affect the total amount available. We hope to get greater clarity on Title VII funding issues in the coming days. We also understand that the Department is working on a Q&A that should provide more information on what is a very fluid situation.
As events unfold, we will continue to keep you apprised of our funding and programming circumstances. As always, we appreciate all that you do to advance international and foreign language education and we thank you for your support of all that we do in that same vein.
Sincerely,
Sylvia W. Crowder, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary and
Senior Director, OPE/IFLE
Dr. KimOanh Nguyen-Lam provides leadership and administrative oversight on the Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad (DDRA) program, National Resource Centers (NRC), Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS), Centers for International Business Education (CIBE) and the American Overseas Research Centers (AORC) programs.
Prior to joining the U.S. Department of Education, Dr. Nguyen-Lam was the Executive Director of the California State University System-wide Consortium for the CSU Critical Language Initiative where she established an innovative language immersion consortium program that enabled students to gain advanced proficiency in Arabic, Mandarin, Korean, Persian, and Russian. Dr. Nguyen-Lam was the Associate Director of the Center for Language Minority Education and Research at CSU Long Beach from 2002-2006, conducting research and training, working with states (California, Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington) and school districts to improve language minority education. From 1993-2002, Dr. Nguyen-Lam was a CSULB faculty with the College of Education where her teaching and research interests were in bilingual education, language minority education and dual immersion language programs. She also taught Vietnamese Language courses for the Southeast Asian Studies Department of the University of California, Los Angeles and Urban School Leadership Development courses for Pepperdine’s Doctoral Program.Dr. Nguyen-Lam has conducted training and has served as a keynote speaker on the topics of Cross-cultural/Multilingual Teacher Preparation, 21st Century Education, Dual Language Immersion, and Interdisciplinary International Education across the U.S. and in China, South Korea, Russia, and Vietnam.
Dr. Sonia Feigenbaum leads and is tasked with the administration of Title VI, Title VII, and Fulbright-Hays grant programs. Between 2011 and 2013, Dr. Feigenbaum served as Director of the Hispanic-Serving Institutions Division at the U.S. Department of Education.
Prior to joining the Department of Education, Dr. Feigenbaum held positions (2001-2011) at the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). While serving as Deputy Director in the Division of Public Programs, she worked with stakeholders and advised numerous applicants, including scholars, who sought direction and counsel for the formulation of projects and institutional strategy. She developed collaborations with funders in the media industry, Federal government, and philanthropic world in order to leverage funds for filmmakers. Her efforts yielded numerous award-winning documentaries focused on international and transnational topics and she designed and implemented new grant opportunities for museums and community organizations nationally.
Between 1995 and 2001, Sonia was a faculty member in departments of Modern Languages and Literatures at Williams College in Massachusetts, the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, and the University of Maryland University College, where she taught Spanish and Latin American and comparative literature.
Dr. Sonia Feigenbaum holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Cello Performance from Indiana University and a Doctorate in Hispanic Literatures and Cultures from the same institution. Her research endeavors center on the relationship between music and literature, contemporary women writers’ and on transnational literature, with a special interest in North Africa, Latin America, and Europe. She is also a published novelist. Originally from France, Dr. Feigenbaum is fluent in French, Spanish, Italian, and has studied Russian and Portuguese intensively.
SUSANNA EASTON RETIRED !!!
Susanna came to the Department on April 23,1963. She was still in graduate school at Columbia University in New York when her husband accepted a medical residency program at the Naval Hospital in Bethesda and they moved to Bethesda. Susanna worked briefly at the Library of Congress and in April 1963, she came to work at the International Office of what was then the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW).
Susanna was hired by Dr. Don Bigelow, as a Research Assistant in the National Resource Centers Section, to work on the Title VI Centers programs.
Highlights of Susanna's travel for the Department include: Banff, Brussels, Budapest, London, Prague, Rome, Quebec, Singapore, Vienna, and various places in Thailand. Additionally, Susanna traveled on her own to Egypt, Europe, India, Kenya, Malaysia, Morocco, South America and Turkey.
Susanna served in the government under 10 presidents and has had a great career working with wonderful colleagues both in the Department and at U.S. colleges and universities.
Of the many awards she received, she's is the most proud of the Educator of the Year Award given to her in 1990 by National Associateion of Business and Interntional Trade (NASBITE) and the and the Academy of International Business (AIB) International Educator of the Year Award presented in San Diego in 2009.
IFLE is very thankful for Susana's contributions to the mission of the Department and we wish her the very best as she embarks on the next chapter of her life.
VOICES FROM THE IFLE FIELD
Center for Business Education (CIBE) at the University of Washington (aka The Global Business Center)
Nobel Laureates, Social Business and Gangnam Style
The Center for Global Studies National Resource Center (NRC) at the
University of Illinois, Highlights the Journalism Field Reporting Program
NRC funds awarded a $50,000 grant for Professer Nancy Benson to lead a course and trip to Turkey on international reporting with a focus on the Muslim world. The students traveled to Turkey this past May and since their return they have received a lot of media coverage. Attached is a flyer we put together on the program and a list of all of the related press on this program. Students had their stories published in the International Herald Tribune, NYT, and appeared on Chicago TV. CGS hopes to expand this program in the future and is working with Professor Benson to attract external funding. Please visit http://cgs.illinois.edu/international%20journalism%20field%20reporting
UC Berkeley-UCLA National Resource Center for Southeast Asia Supports Distance Learning
The UC Berkeley-UCLA National Resource Center for Southeast Asia has been using NRC Title VI funds to support Distance Learning of Intermediate Khmer (Cambodian) since the 2009-10 academic year. The course is taught from UC Berkeley by instructor Frank Smith, one of the country’s leading experts on the Khmer language. UCLA students attend the class by video feed transmitted from their campus to a dedicated classroom locate in the Berkeley Language Center, where Smith and the UC Berkeley students can see and interact with them.
The course took time to set up at first because it required coordination between Berkeley’s semester system and UCLA’s quarter system. But students proved to be adaptable to the compressed timetable, and the course has continued to be offered through the current academic year, with students enrolled from each campus. Smith travels to UCLA once each semester to meet with the UCLA students and teach two classes from there by video feed to UC Berkeley, not least so the Berkeley students can see what it is like to learn a language from afar. Otherwise, UCLA students submit assignments by email and via the course website, and use video chat programs like Skype to meet with Smith during office hours. Not coincidentally, Smith’s energy and dedication has been instrumental in making the course work as well as it has, and he has taken on the challenge of adjusting the course to integrate the technology and the fact that some of his students are not physically present in the classroom with the rest of the class.
Despite the large Cambodian-American population in certain parts of the country, including California, Khmer is still only taught at a handful of colleges and universities around the U.S. Through Distance Learning, Khmer can be taught, in a structured way, to a larger cohort of students than would have once been the case, and to campuses that would not otherwise offer it. At UC Berkeley and UCLA, enrollment in the course has varied from year to year, with the 2010-11 academic year seeing the highest enrollments to date. In that year, 11 UCLA students and 7 Berkeley students took the course.
While UCLA’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies manages the overall program at that campus and works to publicize the course to UCLA students, UCLA’s Office of Instructional Development and Center for World Languages, a Title VI National Language Resource Center also provide administrative support to the course. Title VI NRC funding is used specifically to provide partial salary support to Frank Smith, who is a full-time lecturer in UC Berkeley’s Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies, and to a staff member at UCLA’s International Institute, who manages the course logistics and cross-registration with the Berkeley campus.
Student at the University of Michigan's National Resource Center for Southeast Asia Studies Architecture in Jakarta and Bangkok
By Allen Gillers (Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Michigan)
This spring, a studio course, Architecture + Adaptation, from Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, comprised of 12 architecture students and two faculty travelled to Bangkok and Jakarta. The term hypercomplexity guided our research in these two cities, both of which are important regional and national cities, magnets for internal migration, and face increasingly frequent and heavy flooding. Before leaving Ann Arbor, we came to a working definition of hypercomplexity as the multi-faceted nature of each city’s developmental history, and current economic, environmental, and political realities. However, hypercomplexityremained abstract until we left Michigan and immersed ourselves in the two cities.
In Bangkok we walked the streets, rode the sky trains, floated down the canals, and met with several local architects, educators, and activists. We discussed the 2011 flood with almost everyone, each time hearing new perspectives. In Jakarta we collaborated with Hong Kong University and University of Indonesia in a 3-week workshop titled “Designing for Hypercomplexity,” which focused on architecture’s potential for managing water in the city.We divided ourselves into groups and conducted research on six sites throughout the city.The student research groups met with various faculty, government officials, local pump house workers, desalinization plant engineers, and real estate developers, and attempted to navigate the governmental flood mitigation plans, which seemed to change almost daily.
Through these experiences we were able to develop a more nuanced, visceral understanding of each city’s hypercomplexity, defined by a host of contradictory yet simultaneously existing truths, whose legitimacy was susceptible to constant, rapid change. As architecture students, this immersive learning has been invaluable to our larger disciplinary attempts at broadening architecture’s agency and efficacy as we face new urban and ecological circumstances.
This study abroad was supported in part by the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Michigan and the Amnuay-Samonsri Viravan Thai Studies Endowment at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Michigan.
University of Florida's Center for International Business Education (CIBER) program highlights connections with Community Colleges, State Colleges, Hispanic-Serving Institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and Other Less Served Institutions in the State
University of Florida CIBER extends its reach beyond the university walls, developing and supporting programs for a large, diverse community across the state to increase international business education, awareness, and activities.
Through these programs UF-CIBER supports high schools, state and community colleges, and Florida businesses as they expand their offerings to encompass all that a globalized world has to offer. Some of these programs are:
EFIBI: Enhancing Florida’s International Business Infrastructure: Through this annual grant competition, CIBER’s EFIBI program supports IB-related innovations across the state. EFIBI targets underfunded higher-education faculty who have cutting-edge ideas for strengthening IB components in their programs.
ØIB Training at Hispanic-Serving Institutions: Valencia College
UF-CIBER and Valencia, a designated Hispanic-Serving Institution, have partnered to create programs enhancing IB education. The initiative first developed IB modules for basic business courses and piloted a faculty development program with a focus on Latin America. The next phases expanded these pilots and added modules in non-business programs, such as hospitality and construction.
ØNOBLE: Network of Business Language Educators
High school and community-college faculty use NOBLE to network and exchange ideas to enhance students’ business-language education experience. The site also features resources and information about innovative language and business-related programs around the U.S.
ØFlorida International Business Summit
This annual conference is sponsored by a consortium of Florida universities dedicated to fostering activities that strengthen expertise and interest in transnational and global studies issues. Held in Orlando, the Florida International Summit 2012, titled “Technology, Society, and Innovation in an Era of Globalization,” drew more than 200 business people, students and academics to discuss international business and technology opportunities. The 2013 Summit in Tampa will focus on “Latin America – Defense, Diplomacy and Development.”
Serving all of Florida
Locations of higher education institutions in Florida for which University of Florida CIBER has funded business internationalization programs. Each program was designed individually to meet each institution’s needs, constraints and mission:
The Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Northern Illinois University Produces a
Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Shining Star
The Center for Southeast Asian Studies at NIU thinks of Michael Hawkins as one of our shining stars.Michael was a student at NIU from 2005-2009, completing a PhD in History and a graduate concentration in Southeast Asian Studies with funding from FLAS fellowships (2005-06, 2006-07, 2008-09).Michael conducted research on a Fulbright fellowship in the southern Philippines for his dissertation: Imperial Historicism and American Military Rule in the Philippines’ Muslim South, 1898-1913.He has outstanding speaking, reading and writing skills in Tagalog, speaks reasonably good Visayan, has reading and writing skills in Spanish and can speak some Mandarin.Michael co-authored with Rhodalyne Gallo-Crail, his former Tagalog instructor at NIU, the language textbook Filipino Tapestry: Language Through Culture (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2012); and the book based on his dissertation Making Moros: Imperial Historicism and American Military Rule in the Philippines’ Muslim South. (Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2013) is due for release in April. But just as exciting for us at NIU is that Michael, in his position as an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, has been sending us outstanding new students.We have received three referrals from Michael so far; one of those students Tiffanesha Williams is a MA candidate in political science.She has a summer FLAS award to study Indonesian for summer 2013, and has just received word that she is a finalist for the Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) Program through the Department of State. We look forward to Michael sending us more students as we continue the cycle of training the next generation of Southeast Asia specialists.
OTHER INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION INFORMATION
Teaching Tolerance Honors Culturally Responsive Teaching Award Winners:
