WWU's Center for International Studies announces varied slate of topics for its spring lecture series

[ Editor's note: Gigi Berardi's April 20 lecture has been canceled and thus removed from this story. ]

Presentations on Chilean aquaculture, the Columbia River Treaty and comparing Indian and Chinese economies will highlight the spring lecture series from the Center for International Studies at Western Washington University.

The center sponsors lectures and presentations by visiting and resident scholars during the academic year. All presentations are free and open to the public and are at noon on the following Tuesdays in College Hall Room 131 on the WWU campus:

  • April 6: Rosalie Romano, an assistant professor in the Woodring College of Education at WWU, will present “Partners of the Americas: Building Enduring Relationships Across Borders.” Romano will discuss the Partners of the Americans, and organization focused on building bridges between the United States, the Caribbean and Central and Latin America. Partners of the Americas operates under the premise that partnership builds leadership, understanding and opportunity throughout the Americas.
  • April 13: Joseph Correa, an instructor in the College of Business and Economics at WWU, will present “Travel Abroad to India: A Comparison of China and India.” Correa will discuss how using international travel can serve as a laboratory experience in studying international business. He will focus on the roles of culture, monetary systems, purchasing power of currencies, informal economic systems, negotiating styles, religion and historical influences. Correa will use these ideas to discuss the differences between a command economy and a free economy.
  • April 27: Yong-Taek Kim, a visiting assistant professor of Japanese at WWU, will present “Linguistic Descriptions of the Same Event in Japanese, Korean, Chinese and English.” As a part of Japan Week, Kim will compare grammar constructions in Japanese, Korean, Chinese and English to provide a conceptual framework in understanding how speakers of different languages perceive the same situation and how they encode it linguistically.
  • May 4: Alice Bremner, a visiting Fulbright English teaching assistant at WWU, will present “Teaching in Megacity: A Fulbrighter Reflects.” Bremner will share her experiences as a Fulbright English teaching assistant in New Delhi, India, where she taught seventh- and eighth- grade girls at a government school. Bremner will discuss her thoughts on the Indian education system and share stories from her daily life and travels in India.
  • May 11: Bryan Rust, a graduate student in the Huxley College of the Environment at WWU, will present “Chilean Aquaculture: Food for the Future.” Rust’s lecture will compare the food production industry in Chile to others around the world with the goal of assessing future prospects for food production in this South American country.
  • May 18: Elliott Smith, graduate student in History at WWU, will present “The Columbia River Treaty: How Canadian Dams Saved American Salmon.” Smith will discuss the Columbia River Treaty, ratified by the United States and Canada in 1964 with the intentions of boosting hydropower output, but making no mention of salmon or other environmental concerns. Research, however, has shown that American supporters of the treaty were aware of the treaty’s implications in preserving salmon. Smith will also discuss how a portion of British Columbia’s most pristine mountain valleys were sacrificed to save ecosystems in Washington and Idaho.

For more information on this lecture series or on the Center for International Studies, visit http://international.wwu.edu/ or contact CIS Executive Director Doug Nord at (360) 650-3200 or doug.nord@wwu.edu.