Over the past decade, China’s rural villages have lost over half of their residents as the young and talented have moved to coastal provinces in pursuit of better-paying factory jobs. As a result, rural China is now facing a funding crisis in education and health care services. Young children are among the most deeply affected. As rural villages have depopulated, a lack of students have forced many rural middle and high schools to close.

This dissertation study is a controlled comparison between a Han Chinese farming community engaging in an energy crop cultivation project and an indigenous Amis community practicing organic farming in Taiwan. Through investigation of cultural traditions and historical studies of interactions with agricultural specialists, I examine how these two groups’ conceptualizations of the environment have been shaped.

Professor Ruth B. Bottigheimer, Stony Brook University, teaches courses on European fairy tales and British children's literature. Her work crosses disciplinary boundaries, contextualizing genres in their socio-historical cultures of origin, assessing them in terms of publishing history parameters, and utilizing linguistics in discourse analysis. Her languages of research are English, German, and French, occasionally Italian and Spanish.

Putin’s Kiss focuses on the young, charismatic Masha, a 19-year-old spokeswoman for Nashi, a government-friendly Russian youth organization that promotes strong nationalistic ideals. Since she was fifteen, Masha was highly-involved in Nashi and the organization’s aim to rid Russia of its “enemies.” Through her involvement and loyalty, Masha received tons of benefits from Nashi and was frequently noted as “the girl who kissed Putin.” However, as Masha grows and begins to befriend critical journalists, her beliefs are challenged.

The Summer Institute for Teaching a Second Language for Business Communication is designed primarily for secondary and post-secondary language educators. This program includes an overview of basic business fundamentals, combined with discussion of current issues in language-teaching methodology and curriculum design. Participants work on group projects in which they design curriculum modules that apply the concepts addressed during the program. Participants who are Pennsylvania or New Jersey public school teachers are eligible to receive continuing-education credit.

Academic international internships programs provide business students with a unique opportunity. Panelists from three Centers of International Business Education and Research and a program provider will discuss best practices in running such programs, including the topics of risk management and curriculum integration.

CIBER panel session at NAFSA Conference in Houston, TX.

The European Union (EU) is a unique regional organization whose primary power derives from its ability to regulate. Its regulations were initially designed to create a common trade policy and to integrate economies of member countries to a single market. EU regulations now extend beyond trade to antitrust, consumer safety, drug safety, food safety, pollution, hazardous materials, and others, with these regulations often becoming standards used globally.

This competition is open to all students who are currently studying a world language. Their task is to prepare a marketing strategy for a designated target market and product. For the 2011-2012 competition, the target country is Brazil and the product is from Bayer's Advanced All-in-One Rose & Flower Care line.

Dr. Christian Burgsmuller, a career EU diplomat with the European External Action Service (EEAS) and current Counselor at the EU Delegation to the U.S. in Washington, D.C. gave a lecture about transatlantic energy challenges facing the world today.

Professor Wesche researches in the 17th through the 21st Centuries and is particularly interested in poetics and rhetoric, drama, and myth. The author of two monographs (Der Vers im Drama. Studien zur Theorie und Verwendung im deutschsprachigen Sprechtheater des 20. und 21. Jahrhunderts. [2009] and Literarische Diversität. Abweichungen, Lizenzen und Spielräume in der deutschen Poesie und Poetik der Barockzeit. [2004]) and editor of another four volumes and numerous articles, Professor Wesche will present his recent research on literature, biology, and the transfer of knowledge.