Friday, October 30, 2009

Critical Language Scholarship--Summer 2010

The United States Department of State is pleased to announce the upcoming
scholarship competition for the 2010 Critical Language Scholarship (CLS)
Program for overseas intensive summer language institutes in thirteen
critical need foreign languages. The on-line application for CLS Program
awards will be available November 9, 2009, and the deadline to apply will be December 18, 2009.

Critical Language Scholarships (CLS) provide group-based intensive language
instruction and structured cultural enrichment experiences for seven to ten
weeks. Students may apply for one language, and will be placed at institute
sites based on language evaluations after selection. The 2010 CLS Program
will include new programs in Indonesian and Japanese.

Levels available for each language are as follows:
*Arabic, Persian: Advanced beginning, intermediate or advanced level;
*Azerbaijani, Bangla/Bengali, Hindi, Indonesian, Korean, Punjabi, Turkish, or Urdu: Beginning, intermediate or advanced level;
*Chinese, Japanese or Russian: Intermediate or advanced level.

Students of diverse disciplines and majors are encouraged to apply. While
there is no service requirement attached to CLS Program awards, participants are expected to continue their language study beyond the scholarship period, and later apply their critical language skills in their future professional careers.

For more information on the CLS Program and the selection process, please
visit www.CLScholarship.org. If you would like to receive a program
announcement, please email me directly at sylla.julia@caorc.org.

Julia Phelan Sylla
Assistant Director
Critical Language Scholarship Program
Council of American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC)
Phone: 202-633-7015
E-mail: sylla.julia@caorc.org
Website: www.CLScholarship.org

Hot Dog! Elly Henriksen in the China Daily--


Read the whole thing here--
http://www2.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2009-10/23/content_8836940.htm

US college life is in full swing and many young adventurous Americans are still telling tales about their overseas experiences. It's not unusual for foreign students to spend a summer in China interning at various companies but selling hot dogs in a Beijing hutong is way off the beaten track.

US college student Elly Henriksen ran the Bar Uno hot dog stand, located in Nanluoguxiang, for the greater part of the summer and is now back home in Washington state to tell the story.

"I got there on June 1, and was pretty much keeping the place running," said Henriksen.

A student at the University of Puget Sound in Washington state, Henriksen was offered the job by an American businessman and alumni of her school.

"My professor called me on my cellphone and told me I had a job prospect in China, and asked if I was interested," said Henriksen. With less than three weeks left before the semester was to end, she scrambled to get her visa and passport in place so she could come to China.

"I was basically told 'you're going to be running a hot dog stand, and you're going to work a lot'," said Henriksen. The stand, which is still running, is open seven days a week, for at least 12 hours each day. Henriksen was in charge of "establishing regular hours, regular prices, doing some of the hiring; we wanted to use an American business model," she said....

Thursday, October 29, 2009

Paper Competition; one grand prize---

Wartburg College Announces

An International Competition

For Undergraduate Research Papers

This competition is supported by a generous grant from the Metanexus Institute

Students from around the world are invited to submit research papers that will focus on the relationships between technology, the natural world, and human identity or spirit.

Submissions are due no later than June 1, 2010. Send papers to lake.lambert@wartburg.edu. All papers must be written in English and will be evaluated by a blind review process. Cash prizes in the amounts of $1,000, $500 and $250 are available to the top three papers. Winning papers will be published at www.wartburg.edu/metanexus. For more information, call 319 352 8684 or email dean.johnson@wartburg.edu

Sample Ideas for Papers

The following paper ideas are illustrative of the projects sought by this national paper competition.

Flood Recovery and the Human Spirit: the activation of Social and Spiritual Resources subsequent to the 2008 flood in NE Iowa. This research project is designed to document and analyze the psycho-social and spiritual strategies and processes that enabled (or failed to enable) recovery after the devastating NE Iowa flood in 2008. Data will be collected primarily through interviews with victims of the flood, city officials and area ministers, as well as through visits to sites where recovery efforts are proceeding. Although economic factors will be evaluated as part of the study, the focus of the project will be the affective challenges that confront flood victims and the psychological and spiritual strategies they have used to meet those challenges.

The Effect of Social Networking Technologies on Volunteerism. This research project will document and analyze the effectiveness of social networking technology within the community of Waverly, Iowa, for promoting and organizing volunteerism in response to specific needs: the NE Iowa flood, the destruction caused by hurricane Katrina, and the Feed My Starving Children initiative. Robert Putnam’s analysis of different modes of civic engagement will provide a paradigm or analyzing the kinds of involvement elicited by social networking strategies.

Music and Mood: Seeing the World through an MP3-Player.This project will focus on the effect of music on mood and perception while moving through public spaces. The phenomenon of living inside a private world of sound while moving through public space has become common in contemporary society. This study will seek to understand how both mood and perception of immediate surroundings are affected by continuous music.


The Use of Machine Metaphors for Representing Humans and Society in Shakespeare, the Bronte sisters, Henry James and Kurt Vonnegut. This is an attempt to document through time how the use of machine metaphors to represent humans and society have changed. Electronic searches of those texts that are available in machine readable format, or for which there exist concordances, will be used to facilitate the discovery process.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Wednesday: The Art of Political Murder

PLEASE COME AND CIRCULATE:
Writer/novelist Francisco Goldman
THE ART OF POLITICAL MURDER
Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2009
4 p.m.
Wyatt Hall, Room 109

A triumphant tale of justice belatedly served in a country where the concept had lost all meaning, of institutional evil unmasked in a place where it had long operated behind a thousand disguises, of plodding police work and personal courage overcoming a culture of impunity and fear.

Goldman will discuss the assassination of a Guatemalan bishop Msgr. Juan Gerardi, whose bludgeoned body was found just days after he and a team of human rights investigators announced the publication of a 1,400-page report blaming Guatemala’s security forces for a 30-year reign of murder, torture, massacres, and disappearances.

Francisco Goldman is a Guatemalan-American journalist, and award-winning novelist. He lives in Mexico City and Brooklyn, New York, and teaches at Trinity College in Connecticut.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Nigerian ambassador and PG alum

PG major George Obiozor ’69, former Nigerian ambassador to the United States, was interviewed in Nigeria’s Daily Champion on Oct. 16. Excerpt:


Speak briefly on the book, "Nigeria and the World, Managing the Politics of Diplomatic Ambivalence Among Nations?"

The issue here is that I will like our people to understand that actually, international diplomacy is not a straight forward game, it's not a picnic, and it's not a pleasure journey. It has to do with, to a great extent, where actors sit on the fence most of the time looking for issues that will indeed put their countries at advantage, which also means putting others at disadvantage.

In other words, they are looking for political, economic and strategic interest of their country by persuading others to yield where they will be strengthened. In fact, if necessary, they may enter to promote conflict, even though they had gone in there to stop the conflict. If it is not in their interest to stop it, they will promote it, but they keep appealing to others on the basis of principle, meanwhile; they are pursuing their interest, regardless of what is happening.

In other words, what I have done in the book is to show that in the study of international relations, you have a constant conflict between power and principle. It has been so for a long time, it will continue and it is so today.

This makes international diplomacy a field of outrageous paradox - selective morality and double standards. You must understand what it takes. It requires pragmatism to know when your interest is at stake, what to give in and what to take, when to retreat and when to move forward. So, this is the issue that is involved in the book.

Many of the articles or lectures I gave in America had to do with Nigerian interests within the international system and then promotion of those interests and then advancing the areas of Nigeria's strength in order to invite our host country and the world, as I said of Washington being almost the centre of diplomacy, and till today, it is still the centre of diplomacy in the world... They have influence, major one, America is still the remaining world power, there is no gainsaying that.

Even though they may have their own problems; they still come first before others in military, strategic position in the world, economic position in the world, diplomatic coverage, that is, actually, political diplomatic spread worldwide. Others come after that, whether you are talking of China... China is moving fast and moving well.

Russia is restoring itself after the Soviet's collapse and they are moving now, but the issue remains: who is number one? And the number one doesn't want to become the number two, so there is a resistance from other competitors. This is the issue, that's what makes America strong or great, because they want to keep their position. It may not be dominant position any more, but it is a preeminent position.

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Alum in Ankara



Torey Holderith '09 is in Ankara, Turkey, for the immediate future, learning Turkish and immersing himself in this amazing gateway between Europe and Asia. He's got a blog at http://www.irrelevancy.org/ with a few posts; check it out.

Friday, October 23, 2009

DATE CHANGE 10/26: Afghanistan: Defining the Possibilities

DATE CHANGE--
On behalf of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), Professor Seth Weinberger invites you to participate in an on-the-record teleconference of "Afghanistan: Defining the Possibilities" with John F. Kerry, chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate (D-MA), on Monday, October 26. David E. Sanger, chief Washington correspondent for the New York Times, will preside.

The tele-conference will take plan on Monday, October 26, at 9:30 in WY 226.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Do we matter?

From the NYT, more on the controversy over political science--

After Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, this month proposed prohibiting the National Science Foundation from “wasting any federal research funding on political science projects,” political scientists rallied in opposition, pointing out that one of this year’s Nobel winners had been a frequent recipient of the very program now under attack.

Yet even some of the most vehement critics of the Coburn proposal acknowledge that political scientists themselves vigorously debate the field’s direction, what sort of questions it pursues, even how useful the research is.

Much of the political science work financed by the National Science Foundation is both rigorous and valuable, said Jeffrey C. Isaac, a professor at Indiana University in Bloomington, where one new winner of the Nobel in economic science, the political scientist Elinor Ostrom, teaches. “But we’re kidding ourselves if we think this research typically has the obvious public benefit we claim for it,” he said. “We political scientists can and should do a better job of making the public relevance of our work clearer and of doing more relevant work.”

Mr. Isaac is the editor of Perspectives on Politics, a journal that was created by the field’s professional organization to bridge the divide after a group of political scientists led a revolt against the growing influence of statistical methods and mathematics-based models in the discipline. In 2000 an anonymous political scientist who called himself Mr. Perestroika roused scores of colleagues to protest the organization, the American Political Science Association, and its flagship journal, The American Political Science Review, arguing that the two were marginalizing scholars who focused on traditional research based on history, culture and archives...

ASK Night

Help your students connect with Puget Sound alumni…please urge your students to attend ASK Night! You can forward the message below to your students.

Why network?

Dr. Phil Gardner, the national expert on the college job market recently visited campus. He emphasized two important issues that students need to know as they prepare to enter the job market:
1. “Building and maintaining professional networks is an essential skill required by employers.”

2. “The primary way employers are hiring is through networking.”

So, you’ll need effective networking skills to find a job. And, once you are employed, you will be expected to network as part of your job. Now is the time to build your professional networks.

Practice your networking skills, and make valuable connections with Puget Sound alumni at:


Alumni Sharing Knowledge (ASK) Night 2009
Thursday, Nov. 5: drop by anytime between 7:00 and 8:30 p.m.
Wheelock Rotunda

Light snacks provided.

ASK Night is an opportunity for students to:

· Make contacts/network with alumni professionals in a wide variety of careers

· Connect with and seek advice from alumni

· Hear about what others have done with their Puget Sound education

About ASK NightList of participantsNetworking tips

We’ll see you there! Kris

Kris Hay
Communications Coordinator
Career and Employment Services
University of Puget Sound

Stephen Souvall '09, Protests in Peru

From Stephen Souvall '09:


IMG_0215
I hope all is well in the Department and at UPS! I thought you might find these photos interesting. I spent the past three months in Iquitos, Peru doing a micro credit internship and one day while working I heard a crowd outside.

IMG_0216
I went out on the balcony to find a protest for indigenous rights in progress. These protests in Iquitos and throughout Peru's northern rainforests have been relatively common and have sometimes turned violent. They are in response to government action to open up indigenous lands to oil, mining, logging, and agricultural companies.

More information can be found here (scroll down to the second story):

http://www.americasquarterly.org/indigenous-people-protests-peru

10/27: Examined Life


RAUSCH AUDITORIUM, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 27TH @ 7PM

FILM SCREENING FOLLOWED BY A DISCUSSION WITH
ALISA KESSEL (POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT),
JUSTIN TIEHEN (PHILOSOPHY), AND ARIELA TUBERT (PHILOSOPHY)
SPONSORED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY, THE PHILOSOPHY CLUB,
AND THE DEPARTMENT OF POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Housing better; hotel good

From Forward Tacoma:

- Hotel Murano ranks 6th in the U.S. in the Condé Nast Traveler: 2009 Readers’ Choice Awards. Read more…

- Tacoma tops the list of the 10 Hard-Hit Housing Markets That Are Ready to Rebound. Read more…

Monday, October 19, 2009

Job Opening in Tacoma, deadline 10/23

Job Title: Constituent Services Representative/Grants & Procurement Coordinator (full-time)
Tacoma District Office of U.S. Congressman Adam Smith

Letter of interest & resume with references must be received by October 23rd Attn: Linda Danforth
* mailed to: U.S. Rep. Adam Smith, 2209 Pacific Ave, Suite B, Tacoma, WA 98402 or
* emailed to: Linda.Danforth@mail.house.gov

The position starts in November.

Core Responsibilities:

Work with constituents regarding casework including the areas of: Medicare/Social Security, HUD, SBA and the IRS; work on inquiries related to grants and federal procurement including drafting letters of support, making inquiries and sending information regarding new opportunities; coordinate forums relating to the assigned areas; contribute to the Bringing Congress to Your Door program; assist with townhall meetings; and support other functions that help run the office and provide customer service to constituents.

Qualifications:

Professional manner; excellent oral and written communication skills; thoroughness and careful attention to detail; ability to exercise discretion and independent judgment; ability to work cooperatively and courteously with others in a fast-paced office; knowledge of the federal agencies and the political process; and compassion and commitment to public service and customer service. Ties to and knowledge of the Ninth Congressional District are desired.

Salary range

$28,000 to $35,000, depending on qualifications and experience, with Federal employee benefits.

The office of Congressman Adam Smith is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Qualified applicants are considered for employment without regard to age, race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, disability, or veteran status.

Upcoming Talk: Professor DeMotts, "Soccer Fans on Safari"

From the Political Science Association:

We wanted to first let you know that one of your own, Professor Rachel DeMotts, is giving a lecture this Thursday, October 22 at 7:30pm in WY 101 entitled, Soccer Fans on Safari: The 2010 World Cup and the South African Wilderness. Secondly, we are wondering if you would be willing to announce the lecture in your classes on Wednesday and Thursday. Be sure to tell the students there will be food!

Here is the description of the lecture:
Many conservationists in southern Africa are gearing up to attract soccer tourists arriving for the 2010 World Cup to national parks around the region, especially in South Africa. But what are the local consequences of thousands of fans showing up for soccer matches and then visiting national parks? Who will benefit from this increased tourism, and how is the opportunity for "football and zebras" being marketed?

Thank you for your support!

Lindsay, Heidi, and Katie

Friday, October 16, 2009

For your consideration

From The Monkey Cage:

Political science, even at its best, has few, if any, redeeming aesthetic qualities. We do not offer beautiful theories of how the cosmos came to be; our prose is at best serviceable; if our diagrams convey the meaning they are supposed to and no more, then they have done their job. That means that political science has to justify itself on the pragmatic grounds of its usefulness. But much of political science is not only ugly, but not especially useful. It doesn’t say anything that non-political scientists might possibly care about knowing.

The implication is that political scientists need not only to think about how best to convey what they do to the public; they need to think about doing what...ought to be so conveyed. This is not to say that political science needs to be in the business of pleasing the crowd; many of the truths that political science might want to convey might indeed be somewhat unpleasant to the sensibilities and prejudices thereof. But it needs to see itself as making a useful contribution to public discourse.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Brown bag talk 10/28: Health care reform


In our ongoing series of brown bag talks. See you there--

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Go north, young freshman

We are noted in the NYT as a school forgone for a cheaper option in Canada:

...for some teenagers, Canada might offer a wonderful opportunity.

It has for Jocelyn Berkowitz. At a college fair last year, the 17-year-old was looking for an affordable school with a top-notch art history program -- but she wanted to get out of California. Berkowitz walked up to a University of Alberta table and saw it seemed to have everything she wanted...

Alberta's total costs of $21,500 (U.S.) for tuition, room and board and fees exceed the $18,000 bill Jocelyn would have faced at Humboldt State University, her backup school. But they're significantly less than at the two other schools she considered: Penn State, where she would have paid $28,600, and the University of Puget Sound, where her total costs, even with a scholarship, would have been about $36,000.

(insert snarky comment about Canada here, preferrably with some jibe about hockey)

Monday, October 12, 2009

Puget Sound blasts off

A funny piece in University Business about Puget Sound's recent jaunt into space:

NASA crashed two probes into the moon this morning in an attempt to find water. The University of Puget Sound (Wash.) must be eagerly awaiting the results, considering their admissions office began a recruiting campaign in that region over the summer.
The university had a toe hold in the area through an incoming freshman’s father—American astronaut John Phillips.

Phillips admitted his daughter Alli last fall and volunteered to take the college’s baseball cap with him on the Space Shuttle Discovery’s April 2009 flight to the International Space Station...

The college is getting some earthly good out of this by posting the space photo on its Facebook page and in alumni magazine Arches. So far though, no new enrollment queries have come in from the virgin territory.

Thursday, October 08, 2009

How the mighty are fallen--Harvard profs toss their cookies

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Gone are the hot breakfasts in most dorms and the pastries at Widener Library. Varsity athletes are no longer guaranteed free sweatsuits, and just this week came the jarring news that professors will go without cookies at faculty meetings.

By Harvard standards, these are hard times. Not Dickensian hard times, perhaps, but with the value of its endowment down by almost 30 percent, the world’s richest university is learning to live with less.

Read the tragedy here.

DOE Fellowship Program

Department of Energy

The Office of Science

Graduate Fellowship Program


http://www.scied.science.doe.gov/SCGF.html

The Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science (SC) has established the DOE Office of Science Graduate Fellowship (DOE SCGF) program to provide support for outstanding students to pursue graduate degrees and research in areas of physics, biology, chemistry, mathematics, engineering, computational sciences and environmental sciences relevant to the Office of Science, and to encourage the development of the next generation scientific and technical talent in the U.S.

Fellows will receive a $35,000 yearly stipend for living expenses, $10, 500 per year for tuition and fees and a $5,000 research stipend supplement for research materials and travel expenses. Fellows will be required to attend the annual DOE SCGF Research Conference to be held each summer at a DOE national laboratory. Travel expenses and accommodations to the Conference will be provided by the DOE SCGF program.

THE APPLICATION DEADLINE IS NOVEMBER 30, 2010.

For more information about the program, eligibility, benefits and application visit http://www.scied.science.doe.gov/SCGF.html

The DOE SCGF program is managed by the DOE Office of Science’s Office of Workforce Development for Teachers and Scientists (WDTS) and administered by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE).

Reminder: 10/15 talk: Crude World

Wednesday, October 07, 2009

Essay contest--significant cash prizes!

From the Intercollegiate Studies Institute:

The purpose of the Culture of Enterprise Initiative is to explore in an interdisciplinary fashion the moral and cultural foundations of humane market systems. The program also sponsors book & article awards, and book & lecture series for older scholars, but this undergraduate essay contest asks students to respond to this question, "Can Character and Community Survive in an Age of Globalization?" As you can see, we challenge students to consider the proper balance between market forces and moral principles when examining the realities of our global economic order.

Here are the prizes for the top essayists:

1st Place - $10,000
2nd Place - $5,000
3rd Place - $2,000
4th Place - $1,500
5th Place - $1,000

Students can download the application form, which outlines the details for submitting essays, via this link http://www.cultureofenterprise.org/content/coe_essay_app.pdf

And students can learn more about the contest and read past winning essays by clicking here: http://www.cultureofenterprise.org/essay.html

The deadline for applicants is December 31, 2009, so students can finish their final exams, if they choose, and then turn to the essay contest. Of course, we welcome and encourage early applications as well.

Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Two Week Academic Seminars in D.C, in January

The Washington Center offers two, two-week academic seminars in Washington, DC in January. One is entitled "Inside Washington," and focuses on the presidency and the legislative process. The other is entitled "Camp David III: Negotiating the Path to Israeli-Palestinian Peace." You can find more information be emailing seminars@twc.edu, or by calling 1-800-486-8921. The Washington Center's website is here.

Monday, October 05, 2009

Senator Cantwell internship, Tacoma

majors have done this internship in past and liked it--

An internship in the office of Senator Cantwell offers individuals an opportunity to serve the public through the federal government. Throughout the year, the internship programs in offices throughout Washington State allow students to work directly with congressional aides and get an inside view of the way a Congressional office operates. Internships develop professional skills and offer students the opportunity to explore future careers in public service.

In the State offices, interns have the opportunity to work directly with the public and staff members and will learn firsthand about the constituent advocacy process. Responsibilities include fielding constituent requests, communication with federal government agencies, extensive research and interaction with the public and local groups. Interns may attend briefings with concerned citizens and organizations.

QUALIFICATIONS: Applicants must be motivated, organized, and able to work in a team setting. Internships are open to students of any degree program. Responsibility and flexibility are key qualifications as well as an interest in writing, research and interfacing with the public.

PROGRAM OUTLINE: Internships are available throughout the year and applications are accepted on a rolling basis. Commitments based on school schedules, either semester or quarter, can be accommodated. Internships are unpaid, but available for school credit, if approved by the college/university. Hours and schedule are negotiable, but a regular weekly schedule must be arranged.

REQUIREMENTS: For consideration, please contact the intern supervisor. The application requires a cover letter, resume, a one-page writing sample detailing why you are interested in working with Senator Cantwell and two letters of recommendation. Acceptable letters might come from professors, former teachers, employers or community members who know the applicant.

State of Washington Office
Internship Program
Ken Pierce
Internship Coordinator
Jackson Federal Building,
Suite 3206
915 Second Ave.
Seattle, WA 98174

(206) 220-6400 phone
(206) 220-6404 fax
ken_pierce@cantwell.senate.gov

IDEALIST job fairs

I am writing from Idealist with a quick reminder about four events
coming up in Portland and Seattle in the next couple of weeks. Very
briefly first:

1. The Portland Nonprofit Career Fair, on Wednesday, October 14, from
11:00 to 3:00
http://bit.ly/3UhEB3

2. The Portland Graduate School Fair, on Thursday, October 22, from
5:00 to 8:00
http://bit.ly/tIDNJ

3. The Seattle Nonprofit Career Fair, on Tuesday, October 20, from
11:00 to 3:00
http://bit.ly/l9JRm

4. The Seattle Graduate School Fair, also on Tuesday, October 20, from
5:00 to 8:00
http://bit.ly/8SBhO

All of these events are free for individuals. Please click on each
link for more details, to see which organizations or schools will be
there, and to register.

For the Grad-School Fairs, if you, or anyone you know, are thinking of
going to grad-school next year, these fairs are a great place to meet
with representatives from a wide variety of graduate programs in
fields such as Nonprofit Management, Education, Social Work, Global
Health, International Affairs, Law, Business, Public Policy, Urban
Planning, and more.

At our Nonprofit Career Fairs, on the other hand, you can meet with
local organizations that are seeking staff, interns, or volunteers.

Please share this message with friends and colleagues at work, on
Facebook and Twitter, and on any relevant maling lists, and let me
know if you have any questions.

Thanks, and I hope to see you at one of these!

Joe Grant
Nonprofit HR Coordinator
http://www.idealist.org/careerfairs

Sunday, October 04, 2009

Kali Bechtold 09 heads to Lesotho

Bon voyage and best wishes to Kali Bechtold, who heads out to Lesotho next month through Peace Corps. All the best, and we hope to hear from her experiences there, technology and time permitting--

WashPIRG Internships

For 35 years, students have united under the national Student PIRGs to
face up to society's big problems, take action, and win concrete changes
that improve the quality of our lives. The student PIRGs are independent
state-based student organizations that work to solve public interest
problems related to the environment, consumer protection, and government
reform. Our student-lead board has set up campaigns around the major issues
students will face when they graduate -- from global warming to endangered
species, from staggering student debt rates to high textbook costs, from
the escalating cost and declining quality of health care to the plight of
the hungry and homeless. Students work closely with trained PIRG staff to
develop their leadership skills, learn to successfully plan and organize
winning campaigns and get national media attention.

The Student PIRGs, and specifically WashPIRG, are now accepting internship
applications for Fall 2009. Our interns earn course credit to make a
difference on issues that matter most to them, by educating their campus,
working with the media and educating decision makers. Students can apply
online at http://www.studentpirgs.org/action.asp?id2=32667.

If you are interested in handing out internship brochures to your class,
please respond to this email with your name, address and how many students
you have in your class, and I will send them along!

Please forward the following message to any of your outstanding student
leaders and other faculty members that you think may be interested!

Thank you for all you do for your students!

Jake Shaffren
Washington Field Organizer
w: (206) 568 2856
f: (206) 568 2858
http://www.washpirgstudents.org/

Friday, October 02, 2009

EPA Greater Research Opportunities (GRO) Fellowships for Undergraduate Environmental Study

Interested in environmental policy? Interested in getting paid to work on environmental policy? Check out this fellowship opportunity at the EPA website.

A. Introduction
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), National Center for Environmental Research (NCER), invites applications for the Greater Research Opportunities (GRO) Fellowships for undergraduate environmentally related study for bachelor’s level students. The deadline for receipt of applications is December 10, 2009. Subject to availability of funding, the Agency plans to award approximately 30 new fellowships by July 30, 2010. The fellowship provides up to $19,250 per year of academic support and $8,000 for internship support for a combined total of up to $46,500 over the life of the fellowship. The GRO program enhances and supports quality environmental education for undergraduates, and thereby encourages them to continue their education beyond the baccalaureate level, and pursue careers in environmentally related fields. The actual amount awarded per year will vary depending on the amount of tuition and fees and the number of months the stipend is required. This fellowship is intended to help defray costs associated with environmentally oriented study leading to a bachelor’s degree.

B. Background
The GRO Undergraduate Fellowship program is part of the national effort to help ensure that the United States meets its current and projected human resource needs in the environmental science, engineering, and policy fields (Jackson 2002). The goals of the program are to bolster the environmental generation of tomorrow, bridge to diverse communities, and boost excellent research and development that advance the protection of human health and the environment through education. The program focuses its efforts at stimulating and supporting interest in environmentally related research and development at institutions of higher education that receive limited federal funding, including in particular institutions with substantial minority enrollment (Environmental Career Organizations 2001). By enhancing and supporting quality environmental education for undergraduate students, the GRO Undergraduate Fellowship thereby encourages promising students to pursue careers in environmentally related fields and to continue their education beyond the baccalaureate level. This goal is consistent with the mission of EPA, which is to provide leadership in the nation’s environmental science, research, education, assessment, restoration, preservation, and pollution prevention efforts. The GRO Fellowship program has benefited both public and private sectors by consistently providing the nation with well-trained environmental specialists to meet society’s environmental challenges. GRO supported fellows have provided new environmental research in the physical, biological, health, and social sciences as well as in engineering.

Good source for information about journalism internships, jobs

I ran into an article focused on job opportunities in journalism that noted that entry-level positions in the field almost always go to people who have done (unpaid) internships. The authors worried that students who could not afford to take unpaid work would find it hard to get a leg up in the field. I thought that information about opportunities is always good. Check out Journalism Jobs.

PG Alum Mariner Kemper on Bloomberg TV


Alum Mariner Kemper went on to be noted as one of Forbes' youngest CEOs in America, as head of UMB Financial. Here's a clip of him on Bloomberg talking about the recent economic downturn.

Where the cool alums go--SEA, DC, PDX

Hat tip: Ned Culhane:

The Wall Street Journal recently published a list of "The Next Youth Magnet Cities". Seattle tied with DC in first place; Portland in forth (downside there: high unemployment).

Thursday, October 01, 2009

Peter Maass: Crude World, on campus and NPR

Peter Maass will be on campus on October 15 to talk about his book, Crude World. If you want a taste of his talk, he was on NPR’s THE WORLD yesterday, and you can hear him at:

http://www.theworld.org/2009/09/28/crude-world-an-interview-with-peter-maass/

Professor Weinberger on the radio

Professor Seth Weinberger, fresh from the release of his new book, chatted yesterday on Midweek Politics with David Pakman about Iran, the UN, and other sundry issues. Listen here.

500k for Health Sciences at Puget Sound

Philanthropy Magazine reports that "the University of Puget Sound received $500,000 commitment from Carl and Renee Behnke of Seattle for design and construction new Center for Health Sciences."

Exciting: There's more on our university website. Snippet:

The Center for Health Sciences is the centerpiece of both Puget Sound's 20-year master plan for campus development and the academic strategic plan. The venue will combine in one facility the undergraduate research and teaching disciplines of exercise science and psychology with the college's graduate clinical and research studies in occupational and physical therapy. The center will house the interdisciplinary neuroscience program, to be directed by a recently funded endowed chair in that field. It also will provide resources for the university's occupational and physical therapy clinics, which provide more than 300 patients annually with free health care services.

"Through my many years on the board of trustees, I have seen University of Puget Sound grow to become a leading liberal arts college with strong leadership and a compelling vision for preparing students for the future," Carl Behnke said. "Renee and I are very pleased to be able to make this contribution to the new Center for Health Sciences, which will offer extraordinary opportunities for both students and faculty, and support the development of new realms of research and discovery in the health sciences."

Emerging out of the university's comprehensive master plan, the center is being designed by Bohlin Cywinski Jackson of Seattle. Construction is expected to begin in 2010. The facility will be located at the south end of campus, along N.11th Street, with convenient access for clinic patients who are served by students in the occupational and physical therapy programs. Combined with the Commencement Walk landscape element in the university's master plan, the new center will knit the north and south sectors of campus into a unified whole.