IFLE will open the competition for new awards under the Title VI Business and International Education (BIE) program this summer. We invite institutions of higher education (IHEs) to review the following information and begin preparing application materials if they would like to apply.

Program Purpose

The BIE program provides funds to IHEs that enter into an agreement with a trade association, a business, or both, for the purpose of improving business curriculum and conducting outreach activities that expand the capacity of the business community to engage in international economic activities. The program aims to meet the nation's security and economic needs through the development of a national capacity in foreign languages and international business studies.

Eligibility

The BIE program accepts applications from IHEs that enter into agreements with U.S. business enterprises, trade organizations, associations, or with a combination of associations, that are engaged in international economic activity for the purpose of pursuing the activities authorized under this program.

Application Timeline

The estimated date for the competition announcement will be summer 2021. Once the competition is announced officially in the Federal Register, applicants will have at least 30 days to submit their application packages through Grants.gov.

For More Information

View the BIE program press kit to learn more about the program, including testimonials from past grantees and FAQs. If you have further questions, please email tanyelle.richardson@ed.gov.

During this summer, 32 U.S. teachers, faculty and administrators will depart for Fulbright-Hays Seminars Abroad (SA) projects in Iceland and Mexico. Participants will take advantage of educational lectures and activities designed specifically for each group, including visits to local schools and organizations, meetings with educators and students, and visits to cultural sites. Upon their return to the U.S., participants will draw on their experiences abroad to create new or revised curricula for their classrooms or to update school systems' strategic plans to include global competencies. This summer’s seminars are:

• For K-8 teachers: Iceland, the Land of Fire and Ice – An Exploration of a Small State in the High North.
• For postsecondary educators and administrators: Exploring African Heritage in Mexico.

The Department's Fulbright-Hays programs offer U.S. students, teachers, faculty, and school administrators unique opportunities to travel overseas to conduct research, study languages, and learn about other countries and cultures. These experiences can greatly enrich the work of educators when they return home to their respective institutions, schools, and jobs — enabling them to incorporate their new knowledge into curriculum, classroom pedagogy, and their careers. In addition to the SA program, the Fulbright-Hays programs include the Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad (DDRA) fellowships and the Group Projects Abroad (GPA) program, all administered by the IFLE office.

We look forward to seeing how the current cohorts of Fulbright-Hays participants incorporate their experiences abroad into their dissertations, classrooms, schools, and communities!

Florida International University’s (FIU) Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center (LACC), recently co-hosted the 6th Annual Hemispheric Security Conference (HSC 2021) in collaboration with FIU’s Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy. Made possible with partial support from LACC’s Fiscal Year 2018-2021 Title VI National Resource Centers grant, the May 17-21, 2021, conference attracted 4,159 participants for 10 security-focused virtual sessions streamed live in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

Each year, the HSC conference brings together experts from academia, governmental and nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector to examine the most pressing security challenges facing the Western Hemisphere. Topics include traditional and nontraditional threats, transnational organized crime, threat finance and sanctions, terrorism, cybersecurity, climate change, and geopolitical rivalries.

HSC 2021 featured top U.S. government officials, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical advisor to President Biden; Juan Gonzalez, special assistant to President Biden and the National Security Council senior director for the Western Hemisphere; Dan Erikson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Western Hemisphere affairs; and Admiral Craig Faller, commander of U.S. Southern Command.  

Dr. Fauci joined HSC for a COVID-19 fireside chat moderated by U.S. Southern Command. When introducing Dr. Fauci, Admiral Faller expressed his appreciation for Dr. Fauci’s work throughout the pandemic and noted that it was Dr. Fauci’s expertise, and the information he provided, that helped to guide U.S. Southern Command response and inform their engagement with regional partners in Latin America and the Caribbean. “We banked on your information day in and day out, and passed it on and acted on it as fast as we could,” said Admiral Faller.

High-ranking international leaders also participated in the conference. Luis Guillermo Solis, FIU's LACC interim eirector and former president of Costa Rica, hosted a discussion with Epsy Campbell Barr, vice president of Costa Rica, who analyzed the political and security challenges specific to Central America and the Caribbean. Erika Mouynes, minister of foreign of affairs of Panama, addressed the impacts of climate change on regional security.

In closing the conference, former LACC director Frank Mora stressed the importance of a hemispheric-wide commitment to support the true reform required to address the crises facing Latin American and the Caribbean. 

The Title VI National Resource Centers program provides grants to institutions of higher education to establish, strengthen, and operate centers that serve as resources for language education and area or international studies. Centers teach at the undergraduate and graduate levels and provide wide-ranging expertise to the public on specific world regions and issues.

by Edna Andrews, Duke University, and Kate Burkett, District of Columbia Public Schools

The past 18 months of the pandemic have presented unprecedented challenges across most of our institutions and communities. One community that was particularly hard hit was education. With the suspension of in-person teaching in most of our K-12 schools and many college and universities during this period, both students and teachers found themselves in uncharted territory. The good news is the agility with which most of our educational institutions were able to shift to online and hybrid teaching and learning. However, not all forms of teaching and learning lend themselves as easily to online formats as others. It may be one thing to have online lectures in physical chemistry with extensive use of slides, but it is another thing to teach languages and music without real time, face-to-face interactions. This challenge was addressed in IFLE's August 2020 newsletter article, "New Research on Remote Teaching and Learning from Title VI Language Resource Center."

The Washington DC Public Schools (DCPS) World Language Department certainly noticed the challenges of creating meaningful face-to-face interactions in the virtual space. Many of the enriching experiences that language learners can hope to have during a typical course of study — engaging in interpersonal communication daily and speaking with members outside of their classroom community in the target language — were simply more difficult in the virtual space. One of the positive experiences that emerged in the past year to address some of these challenges was a new collaboration between DCPS and the Duke Slavic and Eurasian Language Resource Center (SEELRC), a Title VI Language Resource Center. Through this partnership, facilitated by IFLE, SEELRC was able to host two different virtual series of faculty-student interactions with DCPS World Language classrooms in three languages — French, Italian and Spanish. Duke professors Liliana Paredes, Luciana Fellin, and Sandra Valnes Quammen facilitated multiple interactive sessions with introductory-level DCPS language classes on a range of topics vital in the language classroom. Between the fall and spring semesters, Duke professors visited 10 DCPS classes. As a result, most participating DCPS students expressed increased confidence communicating in their language of study. Students also expressed a deeper understanding about the importance of learning another language and they gained confidence in their ability to take a foreign language in college. Participating DCPS teachers Valérie Duruz (Ballou SHS), Latrice Nelson-Henry (H.D. Woodson SHS), and Elisa Marchi (Columbia Heights Education Campus) planned the sessions carefully with the professors from Duke University, and cited the virtual sessions as a wonderful professional development opportunity.  

As the coordinators of this new virtual instruction program, we are excited about the ongoing collaboration between the two communities and across languages and cultures. We also look forward to expanding the collaboration during the SEELRC Summer Institute (July 29-31, 2021) and reconnecting in person in the fall of 2021. Special thanks to the U.S. Department of Education for their support and facilitation of these important collaborations between universities and K-12 public school systems.

More than 80 community college students interested in global studies gathered virtually to explore international career paths at the first-ever Stanford University Fair for Community College Students. The daylong event was hosted by Stanford Global Studies (SGS) and featured workshops and presentations emphasizing the importance of developing a global mindset. “The goal of the career fair was to empower community college students in their global learning by fostering dialogue and community around global engagement, providing interactive opportunities for students to learn from leading scholars about global research and careers, and foregrounding students’ diverse perspectives and experiences,” said event organizer Kristyn Hara, outreach coordinator at SGS.

Participating students attended seminars led by Stanford scholars, where they learned about career paths in business and technology, environmental science, government and international affairs, and law. Students also took part in an interactive workshop where they used design thinking to reflect on their personal and professional goals, brainstorm different global career paths, and reimagine their futures.

The event concluded with a panel discussion featuring three students who transferred from community colleges to four-year institutions in the Bay Area. They talked about the factors that inspired them to pursue their degree programs, the benefits of studying abroad, and what they have gained from incorporating an international perspective into their studies. They also offered advice about transitioning from a community college to a four-year university and talked about the difficulties of adapting to a new environment. They encouraged other students to make the most of campus resources, such as the career center, and to lean on friends, mentors, staff, and professors for support and guidance. In their parting words, panelists stressed the value of attending community college and reflected on the ways their unique backgrounds and diverse experiences have benefited them, especially as they approach global studies.

“My experience in community college did not make me any less of a student. If anything, it actually enriched my experience and gave me an even larger world view,” said Ana María Vázquez, a student at Santa Clara University. “You bring so much to the table, and I really want everyone to believe in themselves and not believe that they’re any less qualified because they transferred.”

This event is one of several K-14 community outreach activities offered through Stanford’s Education Partnership for Internationalizing Curriculum (EPIC) and is partially funded by a U.S. Department of Education Title VI National Resource Centers grant.

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM) Ph.D. student Cheri Price (left middle) is determined to put the "human" back into the study of archaeology. Price is taking an interesting approach to her research in ethnoarchaeology — the study of people and cultures through their material artifacts. To understand how ancient indigenous cultures in Mexico crafted their tools, pots, and other implements, Price wants to talk to their modern-day descendants to see what traditions have survived through the years. To do that, she is determined to learn Mixtec, the language of many of Mexico's indigenous people.

With support from a Title VI Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) fellowship granted by UWM's Center for Latin American Studies, she is trying to connect the past and the present with a human touch. In a recent interview, Price said, "I have received the FLAS three times, and I'm so grateful for it. It's easily the highlight of my Ph.D. career and post-academia."

Click the "Read More" button below to read the full interview with Price, where she discusses her research and experience studying Mixtec.

The Center for Global Studies at the University of Illinois, a Title VI National Resource Center (NRC), works with the university's College of Education to support the development of new programs for pre-service teacher study abroad that include pre- and post-departure courses and integrated service programs. The College of Education established a scalable partnership between language instructors and administrators at local schools in rural Illinois to encourage global cultural and language learning. This effort was borne from the NRC-supported Global Intersections Fellowships for Teachers program, which offers licensed K-12 teachers across the U.S. the opportunity to receive funding from UIUC for an education abroad program of their choice.

Last year, the College of Education worked with these local communities to help them strengthen their current language programs, expand language offerings, and broaden efforts to enhance students' global competencies, resulting in the “World Language & Culture Club,” a cross-community and university collaboration where teachers invite native language speakers to visit classrooms and co-teach with teachers. During the pandemic, this project evolved into an NRC-funded innovation called iGlobal, where the College of Education invited middle school classrooms globally to collaborate in a club activity. The iGlobal experience included free, online curricular materials and teaching guides to supplement global education activities for middle school students. The middle school curricular materials serve as a pipeline for more challenging, globally focused high school coursework and activities. The materials are designed to provide familiarity with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), opportunities for collaboration in global English, and meaningful activities during which students meet and collaborate with their peers worldwide. iGlobal highlights include:

• Materials in support of content areas such as STEAM and language/cultural exchange.
• Content developed by university faculty and area studies experts targeted for various school schedules in all time zones.
• Opportunities for students to develop and demonstrate increased global competencies and familiarity with the UN SDGs.
• A certificate and a virtual or in-person recognition ceremony from the University of Illinois upon completion of a summative project.

In his new book, Bridging the Longest Border: A History of Canadian-American Studies at Western Washington University, Don Alper, former director of the Center for Canadian-American Studies at Western Washington University (WWU), tells the story of how WWU and University of Washington (UW) were able to leverage scarce resources to create a comprehensive Title VI National Resource Center (NRC) focused on Canada that educates thousands of students and teachers annually and provides expertise to policy officials on myriad issues, including bilateral trade, climate change, border management, and Arctic science and policy matters.

In 1986, UW teamed up with WWU to form a consortium to apply for Title VI funding to expand Canadian Studies in the Pacific Northwest. With long-standing Canadian Studies programs in place at both universities, federal dollars would be used to build on the unique strengths on both campuses to create a dynamic program in the state of Washington where Canadian Studies was at its strongest in the West. 

Leveraging UW’s graduate, professional school and language training assets, and its collaborative ties with K-12 and community college educators with WWU's undergraduate training strengths and its well-developed outreach program for K-12 teachers, the institutions forged a logical division of labor and a pathway for students and faculty to work together.

As Alper writes in the book, the status that comes from being a U.S. Department of Education NRC opened doors for obtaining other grants and gaining influence with university administrators and political leaders to take the programs to the next level. The result was the NRC successfully launched highly significant initiatives, including two distinguished professorships, a stand-alone policy institute dedicated to border policy research, the nation’s first and only Foreign Language and Area Studies fellowships in Indigenous languages spoken in Canada, and the first undergraduate programs in Arctic Studies and Salish Sea studies in the contiguous states.

The 2021 International Studies Summer Institute (ISSI), a professional development workshop for practicing and pre-service K-12 teachers hosted annually by the Cornell University Einaudi Center for International Studies in collaboration with the Syracuse University South Asia Center (a Title VI National Resource Center), will be exploring the impacts of disease throughout history.

During this cross-curricular workshop, educators will engage in activities that focus on integrating world area knowledge by exploring the impacts of human diseases, both historical and contemporary. Teachers will explore how we can use our experiences with the COVID-19 pandemic to gain greater knowledge about the disease and public health approaches in communities around the world. The workshop aims to encourage teachers and their students to develop a greater understanding of the world's different regions and cultures, and to think critically about social, political, and environmental issues using public health concerns as a jumping-off point. Due to the wide-ranging nature of this theme, the 2021 ISSI will be suitable for elementary, middle, and high school teachers from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds.

Topics will include:

• Influenza pandemic of 1918 in South and Southeast Asia.
• Colonialism and disease in the Americas.
• Disease in Western art.
• Social and economic impact of zoonotic diseases.

Participating teachers will complete a lesson plan that incorporates content from the workshop, with the support and guidance from outreach staff. Those who participate in all aspects of the ISSI will get 10 CTLE. Register now!

IFLE would like to thank Morehouse College sociology professor Ida Rousseau Mukenge for her service to the field of international and foreign language education over her long and impactful career. Mukenge served as a panel reviewer for many of IFLE's Title VI and Fulbright-Hays programs over the years and was the recipient of two Fulbright-Hays awards administered by the IFLE office.

Mukenge’s scholarship is wide-ranging and reflects her passion for African heritage and social transformation with more than a half-century of studying, working, and conducting research in Africa and about the African diaspora. Her research interests include relationships between work, identity, and mental health; church and society; women in leadership; and social justice. With the support of IFLE grant funding, she established “Morehouse in Oaxaca” and “Morehouse in Bahia,” two Fulbright-Hays programs for collegiate and K-12 educators in the humanities and social sciences.

IFLE wishes Dr. Mukenge the best in retirement!

IFLE is on Twitter with the latest from the world of international and foreign language education. Follow us @GoGlobalED and tell your friends. We’ll see you in the Twittersphere!

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Have you received a FLAS fellowship or participated in a Fulbright-Hays grant program? Join our alumni groups on LinkedIn.

FLAS Program Alumni          Fulbright-Hays Program Alumni

We seek motivated students who are eager to learn and work as part of our team as an unpaid full- or part-time intern during the summer, fall, and/or spring. Visit our website for more information.

We want to hear from you! Do you have suggestions for webinar topics? Ideas for things to include in future newsletters? Send them to Carolyn Collins at carolyn.collins@ed.gov.