Internationalization Mini-grants
Report: 2003-2004

Interethnic Conflict & Communication Between Maroon People & Suriname
Kate Comiskey, International Affairs

This research will examine the historical, political and cultural dimensions of the interethnic conflict and communication between the Maroon people of Suriname and the Surinamese mainstream government. There has been an ongoing conflict between the Maroons and the Surinamese government over land use and access and legal governance, which resulted in violence and massacres of Maroons by government troops in the 1980’s. Ms. Comisky will conduct on-site interviews with Maroonian contacts during the two-week service-learning program through the Black Studies Department at PSU, under the tutelage of Dr Kofi Agorsah. She will provide a historical and cultural review of the conflict and an analysis of how different cultural communication styles between the Maroons and the Surinamese government influence the cross-cultural conflict. She will conclude with a proposal for further qualitative research that would be useful for strategies in managing this conflict. On a professional level, Kate will use the opportunity in Suriname to visit the US consulate and interview a consular official regarding visa processes there. Upon her return, she will serve as a contact in International Affairs for domestic students interested in the Black Studies Department service learning programs. 

Progress Report 6/04:
For three weeks in February 2004, Ms. Comisky traveled to Suriname on a PSU sponsored education abroad program. During that time, she conducted initial interviews with Maroon leaders, Peace Corps workers and Maroon advocates to gain insight into the conflict between the Maroon people and the government of Suriname. Ms. Comisky also met with the US consulate to discuss visa processes in Suriname. Following her trip, she produced a paper presenting the initial findings of her research on the conflict, and submitted a report to the Office of International Affairs outlining her observations and suggestions for the Suriname Education Abroad Program and a summary of her discussion with the US consulate.

Building Capacities for Work with Mexican-origin Students
Jack Corbett, Public Administration

The rapid growth of the Mexican-origin school population in the Pacific Northwest creates a wide array of challenges for educators, communities, and the Mexican-born population itself. One central complication is the lack of familiarity among American educators with the curriculum, pedagogy, organization, and other facets of the Mexican education system. This makes it difficult to facilitate student transition from schools in Mexico to those in the United States. With the assistance of the Southwest Center for International Studies and a Mexican teacher doing graduate work in Portland this project will create grade-level briefing packets of materials in English to support teachers in Pacific Northwest elementary schools. This preliminary project will be assessed by focus groups of educators whose feedback will inform the preparation of a more substantial proposal to national funders.

Speaking Out: War & the Global Economy, A Curriculum Guide
Jan Haaken, Psychology

This project involves the production of a curriculum manuscript titled, Speaking Out: War and the Global Economy. The curriculum guide will be distributed with the documentary video, Diamonds, Guns, and rice: Sierra Leone and the Women’s Peace Movement (Haaken & Haaken-Heymann, 2000). Based on Sierra Leone as a case example, the curriculum addresses a series of topics related to war and the peace process. Chapters include Setting the Stage, Rice and the Politics of Food, Banks and the Global Economy, diamonds and Guns, and Forgiveness and Reparation. The film is richly textured and ethnographic, combing interviews, war footage, music, poetry, and scenes portraying the vitality of the Sierra Leonean people and culture. Similarly, the curriculum includes engaging activities and materials for use in secondary and college educational settings.

Sexuality, Culture & Society Summer Institute at the University of Amsterdam
Ann Mussey, Women Studies

Dr. Mussey will be attending a four-week Summer Institute on Sexuality, Culture, and Society at the University of Amsterdam. The Institute offers courses taught by an international team of experts in sexuality studies and a student cohort of academic researchers and NGO professionals/activists from around the world. The Institute provides a unique opportunity to engage with an international group around questions such as the role of sexuality in nation building and nationalist movements; sexual rights as human rights; the politics of the transnational sex trade industry; and the influence of markets and migrations in shaping sexual practices and identities. Her goals are twofold: define and explore a new research agenda using a global frame and advance revisions of her courses in sexuality studies to center global issues and multi-national contexts.

Progress Report 10/04:

Dr. Mussey attended the four-week Summer Institute on Sexuality, Culture, and Society at the University of Amsterdam where she took eight different courses on topics ranging from "Sexuality and the Political Culture of Nation Building," to "Sexuality and Human Rights" to "Infinite Heterosexualities."  The courses provided her with the luxury of reading new material in sexuality studies, especially anthropological research, and the setting to meaningfully engage with people from Indonesia, Vietnam, India, Uganda, the Philippines, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Finland, and the U.S.  Her own research in the history of sexuality, commitment to integrating transnational connections into her courses, and her affiliation with the new field of sexuality studies all combined to make the Summer Institute a great experience.

As a result, she has defined some new research questions related to how and why certain issues related to sexuality cross national borders. More immediate is the affect that the experience at the Summer Institute is having on the classes she teaches. Finally, she is more convinced than ever that a certificate or minor in sexuality studies would be an important contribution to the curriculum at PSU, and she has prioritized moving forward on a proposal this year.

Caring for Elders in Nicaragua: A Community-Based Learning Project
Margaret Neal, Institute on Aging

This project represents an international collaboration between PSU, the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO), and the Jesse F. Richardson Foundation. Funding is for the translation and reproduction of appropriate Spanish language training materials to be used by PSU faculty and students in a community-based learning project in Nicaragua. The increasingly aging population in Latin America has caused considerable concern among educators, health providers and others around the world. PAHO, an international public health agency, approached the Jesse F. Richardson Foundation (a non-profit agency that serves elders through global partnerships) about creating a pilot program aimed at training care providers of elders in developing countries. Dr. Keren Brown Wilson (Adjunct Associate Professor at the Institute on Aging at PSU and President of the Jesse F. Richardson Foundation) is coordinating the program. Key components include: developing and teaching an International Aging course at PSU, developing and translating training materials in Spanish, and organizing a service learning experience in Nicaragua. Dr. Martha Pelaez, the Regional Advisor for Aging and Health with PAHO, has volunteered to serve as an educational fellow with PSU. Dean Marvin Kaiser, Dr. Margaret Neal, and additional PSU faculty and students in gerontology and international studies also are involved.

Final Report 10/04:

This pilot project was a community-based collaborative partnership composed of students, faculty and international organizations with the aim of learning about and serving frail elders in Nicaragua. Faculty from the Institute on Aging in the College of Urban and Public Affairs, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the Jesse F. Richardson Foundation, and the Pan-American Health Organization worked with PSUÕs Education Abroad Office to offer PHE 410/510 International Healthcare and Aging: Focus on Nicaragua over three weekends in Winter term 2004. The course prepared students for two intensive weeks of service learning in Granada and Jinotepe, Nicaragua from March 17-30, 2004. Training and assessment materials for use with Nicaraguan health and social service workers also were prepared and translated, with the aid of this mini-grant. The nine students who participated represented both graduate and undergraduate programs in various departments from across campus.

Once arriving in Nicaragua, the students visited Òhogares para los ancianosÓ (homes for the elderly) and ÒcomedoresÓ (elderly meal sites) to offer training to care providers and tools for the assessment of eldersÕ health. The students, faculty advisors, non-profit organizations, and Nicaraguan governmental officials who were involved judged the program a great success, and the course and service learning component will again be offered this coming year. Upon the groupÕs return, several slide shows and presentations were given, and still another, Aging in Nicaragua: A Study Abroad, Community-Based Learning Experience, will be made at the annual scientific meeting of the Gerontological Society of America in Washington, D.C. on November 20th.  This project was made possible through the efforts and resources of numerous people and organizations, including the Internationalization Mini-Grant. This grant was crucial to the success of the project, as it enabled the training and assessment materials that were used to be professionally translated into Spanish.

Iberia & the Western Mediterranean in International Historical Context
John Ott, Karen Carr, & Patricia Schechter, History

In the past year, several faculty in the Department of History have been exploring the extension of their regular curricular offerings to focus on the multiethnic and religiously pluralistic region of the western Mediterranean, above all Iberia (Spain and Portugal). While they (John Ott, Karen Carr, and Patricia Schechter) have been pursuing their common interest independently of one another, all three of them have communicated about how to build their professional teaching and research expertise in Iberian history and the wider worlds of Europe, North Africa, and the Americas. With the exception of Karen Carr, none of them have research specialization in Iberian history, and prior to last year, none of them had offered any courses in that subject. Indeed, western Mediterranean history in its global historical context has never formed a part of the History department’s curricular offerings. This grant will be used variously to accomplish the following goals: build language specialization in Spanish; acquire books, microfilm, periodicals, and/or other primary and secondary source materials for research and curricular development; and to present work-in-progress at a peer-reviewed conference. The cumulative result of their labors will be to diversify PSU’s history curriculum in the world beyond the West—given Spain’s particular connection as a bridge between new worlds and old, and Islam, Judaism, and Christianity—and to bring a broader perspective on world history to both their majors and general education students.

Progress Report:

Each of the faculty members applied their grant money towards building resources for their research and teaching. Above all, the opportunity to apply for grant money opened a dialogue among the three of them on the subject of the departmentÕs curricular offerings in the multinational, multi-linguistic, and multi-ethnic Mediterranean and Atlantic.  The grant money then became the vehicle through which immediate and near-term curricular change in the department will be effected, and its offerings in under-represented regions will correspondingly increase.

Relations & Relationships in Seventeenth-Century French Literature Conference at PSU
Jennifer Perlmutter, Foreign Languages & Literatures

Portland State University and the North American Society for Seventeenth-Century French Literature will host a three-day international event on the PSU campus from May 6-8, 2004. They have engaged three distinguished speakers to present their groundbreaking work and have invited over fifty additional scholars from Europe and North America to participate in thirteen separate discussion panels. As president of NASSCFL and organizer of the conference Dr. Perlmutter, along with her colleagues, have chosen the theme “Relations and Relationships,” one that encourages an interdisciplinary exploration of classical French literature and culture and calls into question our long-established tradition of canonizing these works. In reevaluating this literature, conference speakers will raise questions that will broaden the audience’s comprehension of a country that has made so many headlines this past year and will contribute to the understanding of France’s claim to universality. Because the Portland region boasts a remarkably large Francophone and Francophile community, they anticipate great attendance and lively debate! The acts of the conference will be published in Papers on French Seventeenth-Century Literature, thereby ensuring an on-going discussion of the ideas presented.

Final Report:
The seventeenth-century French literature conference ÒRelations and RelationshipsÓ hosted by Portland State University and the North American Society for Seventeenth-Century French Literature was a tremendous success.   Held over three full days (May 6, 7, 8) at PSU, the conference welcomed approximately one hundred scholars from France, Belgium, England, Scotland, Canada and the United States.   The event stimulated a high level of scholarly discussion and garnered much praise from participants on the basis of both its intellectual richness and its collegiality.   The Narr house in TŸbingen, Germany will publish selected acts of the conference in 2005, ensuring a continuation of this dialogue beyond the United States.

The conference's international component was a principal factor in its success.   Because most American scholarship is not available in French, there is little opportunity for a true exchange of ideas and approaches with European colleagues.   This event facilitated this exchange by dedicating a portion of its budget to foreign scholars' travel expenses.   In all, they were able to provide financial assistance to six foreign scholars.   The Internationalization Mini-Grant covered hotel costs for two speakers attending from France who would not have been able to participate otherwise.

Oxidative Stress as Sensed by SSV Virus Induction
Kenneth Stedman, Biology

Oxidative stress, a common and not well understood method of activation of latent viruses in all organisms will be tested using Sulfolobus solfataricus and the virus SSV-1 as a model host-virus system. This work will be done in collaboration with Dr. Yannick Combet-Blanc's laboratory in Marseilles, France. Microarray experiments and preliminary cell culture work will be performed in Portland and all controlled cell growth will be performed in France. This work will provide preliminary data for larger grant proposals and will establish a long-term collaboration between PSU and the Laboratoire de Microbiologie in Marseilles, France.

Project Update 6/04:   The complete genomic sequence of a new Sulfolobus virus, SSV3 from Krisovik, Iceland has been determined by Dr. Yannick Combet-Blanc's laboratory in Marseilles, France.   The Stedman lab provided needed reagents for this process. We are in the process of analyzing the sequence, preparing it for publication and preparing microarray experiments.   An abstract has been submitted for a presentation at Extremophiles 2004: 5th International Conference on Extremophiles to be held in Cambridge, Maryland from September 19-23, 2004.   Dr. Combet-Blanc will be presenting.   This work was greatly stimulated by the support of the President's Internationalization Minigrant 2003-2004 and will definitely continue.   The project has also begun to involve a graduate student in the Biology department who is learning sequence analysis techniques and their application to comparative viral genomics.

Granular Flows Research
J.J.P. Veerman, Mathematics

Granular (or "grain-like") flows occur in many places in nature as well as in industry. Natural granular flows occur in avalanches, and in soil movements in general (as in the formation of dunes). Industrial applications include the transportation of granular food stuffs, coal, and so on. PSU's research consists in mimicking certain physical characteristics of these flows in the simplest possible way. They are thus looking for a low-dimensional mathematical model that describes important aspects of the evolution of granular flows. This way they hope to gain analytical insight in these phenomena such as avalanches, transport of grains by conveyor belts, and by chutes. Once formulated, the models are investigated numerically and mathematically to discover what kinds of behavior can be explained by low-dimensional dynamics and, in some cases, even compared directly to experiment. Their approach, trying to find the underlying low-dimensional dynamics is somewhat neglected in the literature on the subject, which concentrates on trying to take into account the interaction between many particles. The international dimension is of importance as well. Professor Vasconcelos is a native of the "`northeast"region of Brazil. Traditionally this is a very impoverished region (with the exception of some of the major coastal tourist centers). Nonetheless this is a region with its own deep-rooted cultural traditions, some of which are now known throughout the world (particularly music). Vasconcelos' home institution (Universidade Federal de PErnambuco, UFPE) is considered one of the top universities in Brazil, and actively encourages international in all areas.

They are inviting Professor Vasconcelos (Associate Professor in the Physics Department of the UFPE in Recife, Brazil) with whom they have a longstanding collaboration for a week-long visit. He has agreed in principle to visit PSU for a week between mid-March and the beginning of May (in 2004), most likely the last week of April. His activities will consist of:

• Present a seminar on the current research in the Department od Mathematics and Statistics at PSU, and discuss the results with other PSU faculty members and students, seeking to intensify the current collaboration.
• Present a seminar, with the same goal as before, on other work at his home institution. Possibly this seminar will be given in the Department of Physics at PSU.
• Continue the collaboration with PSU. In particular, he will help to plan the activities during Dr. Veerman's proposed longer term visit to Recife (June-July 2004).