Spring 2014 review final pdf

IllInoIs InternatIonal

Review

Issue No. 18 sPRING/suMMeR 2014

unIversIt y of IllInoIs at urbana-ChampaIgn

Helping Global Studies Majors Go Abroad

Ui Partnering with Univ. of Birmingham (UK)

working on Biofuel Alternative in Haiti

Global Leaders in Construction Management

Matt VanderZalm | Managing Editor

Christen Mercier | Assistant Editor

Gretchen Wieshuber | Graphic Designer

I am part of the team that works to ensure that the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has a bright and sustainable future. Under the leadership of Chancellor Phyllis Wise, our advancement team is working to build and maintain strong relationships with our alumni and friends around the world. Our goal is to maintain our status as a pre-eminent public research university with a land-grant mission and global impact.

Illinois has a long history as a leader in higher education, consistently ranking in the top 25 global universities. With nearly 10,000 international students from around the world, we recog-nize that many of our most active and devoted alumni are 12 time zones away from campus. Some of our most prominent alumni—such as Rafael Correa, President of Ecuador; Ang Lee, Academy Award winning direc-tor; and renowned architect Cesar Pelli were not born in the U.S. Our alumni live in major financial capitals such as London, Hong Kong, and Tokyo; they have pursued careers that have led them to Dakar, Alberta, and Bishkek.

I am pleased to announce that we have a team in place that will work to connect with our alumni, parents, and friends around the world to help make our global family stronger. We will work to strengthen alumni clubs that can serve as valuable resources to prospective students, current students, recent graduates, and alumni. As you know, these Illinois connections are powerful; they can help current students find internships, they can help our recent graduates find jobs, and they can even help well-established professionals build and expand their net-works. I urge you to update your information online (at go.illinois.edu/AlumniUpdate) and see if there is an alumni club in your area. If there isn’t one, please let us know how we can help you start one.

Many international alumni and friends have made a financial commit-ment to the future of Illinois. M. T. Geoffrey Yeh came to Illinois from Hong Kong to study civil and environmental engineering, completing his degree in 1953. In 2007, he made a $4 million naming gift for the 20,500 square foot addition to the Newmark Civil Engineering Labora-tory. The M. T. Geoffrey Yeh Student Center features state-of-the-art classrooms and spaces for student group meetings, project discussions, and study. Yeh also made gifts to support graduate student fellowships and an endowed chair in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

In 2009, a gift from Brazilian businessman and philanthropist, Jorge Paulo Lemann, established the Lemann Institute for Brazilian Studies. The institute promotes study and research about Brazil by faculty and students both at Illinois and in Brazil. Both undergraduate and gradu-ate students have benefited from fellowships in areas of study including literature, history, business, and Brazilian culture.

We need your support to ensure the next generation of international student success stories at Illinois. Your gift, whether a $100 annual contri-bution to support current student scholarships, to a naming gift like those of Yeh and Lemann, is a powerful commitment to our future. We look forward to celebrating the future success of our global Illinois family.

Dan Peterson Vice Chancellor for Institutional Advancement

On the cover: Global Leaders in Construction Management students pose with University of São Paulo professors and staff from Linha 5 joint venture (Camargo Correa and Andrade Gutierrez) on the project site near the construction of a new subway station. Presently, this subway station is the entry point for a tunnel boring machine that will bore a 1000 meter long tunnel to the next station and then continue beyond. See article, page 8.

in This issue 3 Helping Global Studies Majors

Go Abroad

5 New Partnership Focuses on Cultural Heritage

7 Building a BRiDGe between the Midwest and the west Midlands

8 Cee expands Global Leaders Program

12 Celebrating “Madiba”

14 Focusing on international Students

15 Keeping illinois Healthy and Safe

18 Michael and Mary Ann vahl Study Abroad Scholarship

20 Center Lends expertise for Biofuel Alternative in Haiti

22 Discovering Oman, ibadi islam, and the indian Ocean

24 Reflections on the Founding of ReeeC

26 Ui Opens Office in Shanghai

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IIR is also available online at international.illinois.edu/iir

2 iLLiNOiS iNTeRNATiONAL Review

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http://international.illinois.edu/iir

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BRiTTNey NADLeR, COMMUNiCATiONS iNTeRN, iNTeRNATiONAL PROGRAMS AND STUDieS

A significant recent gift by alumna Diane McGrath (’86) aims to help Global Studies students fulfill the study abroad portion of their degree and enhance the impact those students make. Ken McGrath and his late wife Barbara, who was a graduate of the University of Illinois, decided to leave their estate to Illi-nois. Diane and her brother, Dan, chose which areas they wanted their parents’ generous gift to support. Diane chose to support students majoring in Global Studies, an interdisciplinary program within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

“I’m hoping that students that might not have studied global studies because of [the pro-gram’s] higher tuition will be able to [pursue] that degree ... and that they will go out and do great things while they’re abroad, and then continue to use that knowledge and experience to have international careers in whatever field they decide to pursue,” McGrath said.

The Barbara H. McGrath and B. Diane McGrath Go Global Scholarship was inau-gurated this year, with a current use gift that will allow today’s students to benefit from the McGrath’s generosity and vision.

In addition to Global Studies majors, the Go Global Scholarship also has a portion ear-marked for students who are working toward solving problems in international adoption. McGrath said a very small percentage of home-less and orphaned children will be adopted internationally. McGrath hopes that students from all fields who are interested in studying and potentially solving international adop-tion issues in a country can benefit from the donation.

“There are a lot of laws in place that are, in theory, to protect the children,” McGrath said. “But in reality, children stay in their countries and the older they become, the less likely they are to be adopted, as so many people want only babies. The vast majority remain in orphanages throughout their childhood, or worse, end up living on the street.”

For example, Malawi doesn’t have an international adop-tion program, which could potentially be changed if a student went abroad and worked with the local and U.S. governments, McGrath said.

“It’s a subject that I’m particularly passion-ate about,” she added.

McGrath began her University of Illinois journey as a James Scholar without knowing what she wanted her major to be—but she did know she wanted an international career. She received her bach-elor’s degree in political science and minored in history and economics while continuing to learn French and German.

“People thought I was crazy that I kept taking a language because I had fulfilled the require-ment in high school, but I would say, ‘Well, I’m going to have an international career so I need to continue learning languages,’” McGrath said.

During her junior year, McGrath’s fascination with Eastern Europe led her to study abroad in Vienna, Austria, from which she traveled to Poland, Czechoslovakia (now separated into the Czech Republic and Slovakia), the former Soviet Union, and Hungary. During her final year at Illinois, she heard about a scholarship that would be given to one American student for an internship back in Austria, but there was a catch: the scholarship asked for sophomores or juniors majoring in business who had never been to Austria.

“I didn’t fit any of the criteria, but I knew if I didn’t apply then I definitely wasn’t going to get the scholarship,” McGrath said. “So I applied and I found out just as I graduated from the U. of I. that I won. From there, I dug in my heels and ended up having the interna-tional career I’d always dreamed of.”

Helping Global Studies Majors Go Abroad

From left to right: Diane McGrath, Christopher (7), Vincent Toolan, Thomas (4).

McGrath poses on the Great Wall of China.

UNiveRSiTy OF iLLiNOiS AT URBANA-CHAMPAiGN 3

Interning at Die Länderbank, the then-largest bank in Vienna, proved to be difficult, but was the kick-start McGrath needed to begin her dream career.

“It was challenging to understand all the various German and Austrian dialects,” McGrath said. “I went around and I met various top executives in the bank and learned all about commercial banking, in German, so I would be very tired at the end of the day.”

Determined to remain in Europe, McGrath networked with everyone she met, from fellow actors while working as an extra in an Aus-trian film, to the then U.S. ambassador Ronald Lauder, before eventually landing a three-month internship with Estée Lauder Cosmet-ics in Paris. Three months turned into a year continued on page 11

Clockwise from below: McGrath flies a glider plane in Canada. McGrath poses for the camera after returning from Vienna, Austria. Chipping at the Berlin Wall in East Berlin. A Kenyan native poses with McGrath. Riding a buffalo on a cold day in Tibet.

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before another job offer arose—Estée Lauder in New York. But wanting to stay in Europe, McGrath found a job with a small investment bank in Madrid, Spain.

“The world is becoming a much smaller place and people that have the skills and the desire to work globally are going to be in huge demand in the workplace,” she said. “I also believe that studying abroad is a great way to forge rela-tionships both professionally and personally that can be absolutely life changing, which has certainly been my case.”

After her time in Spain, McGrath moved back to France, where she worked for companies that are “more known to the average Ameri-can.” An internship at Procter & Gamble in


HeLAiNe SiLveRMAN, DiReCTOR, COLLABORATive FOR CULTURAL HeRiTAGe MANAGeMeNT AND POLiCy (CHAMP) AND PROFeSSOR, DePARTMeNT OF ANTHROPOLOGy

Cultural heritage. These two words, when paired, are increasingly fraught with social, political, economic, historical, personal, and above all, global implications. Wars are fought over cultural heritage. National identity is pre-mised on it. Tourism-based economic devel-opment exploits it. And the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organiza-tion (UNESCO) promotes cultural heritage as a fundamental concept while leveraging it as a very practical means of political influence as countries play a high-stakes game of interna-tional prestige. Cultural heritage is, in fact, one of the most significant aspects of globalization, contributing to internalized conceptions and externalized presentations of ourselves—as individuals, as members of our local commu-nities, as actors in the production, packaging, marketing, and consumption of “culture,” as citizens of our countries, and as stakehold-ers in transnational governance organizations such as UNESCO. Cultural heritage is not only a scholarly pursuit undertaken from a variety of theoretical perspectives, it is an important and quickly expanding source of employment in response to a growing need for well-trained professional practitioners with excellent academic grounding as well as practical experience in site management and preserva-tion, tourism and marketing, and regional and economic development.

Over the past two years, the Collaborative for Cultural Heritage Management and Policy (CHAMP), an inter-disciplinary heritage research center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has been working in part-nership with the renowned Ironbridge Interna-tional Institute for Cultural Heritage (IIICH) at the University of Birmingham, in the United Kingdom, to create a unique opportunity for the critical study of cultural heritage issues. This alliance has developed into an ongoing series of Trans-Atlantic Dialogues on Cultural Heritage (TADCH) reflecting the historic cir-culation of people and ideas across the ocean as well as the current positioning of TADCH

as the preeminent fulcrum for debate and advocacy among heritage scholars and practi-tioners in America, the UK, and Europe. This collaboration in cultural heritage study forms a central component in the emerging strategic international partnership between Illinois and the University of Birmingham. (See sidebar “Building a BRIDGE between the Mid-West and the West Midlands.”)

The TADCH project, through the dynamic leadership of Helaine Silverman, director of CHAMP and professor of anthropology at Illinois, and Mike Robinson, director of IIICH and professor of cultural heritage at Birming-ham, has already produced a laudable series of accomplishments, with great plans for the future.

Professors from CHAMP and IIICH have lec-tured in each other’s courses several times over the past two years and will continue to do so. Professor Paul Kapp, of the School of Archi-tecture at Illinois, was awarded a prestigious Fulbright Scholarship to conduct research and teach at IIICH, deepening the academic cross-fertilization between the two schools (and contributing to the University of Illinois’s 2013–14 standing as the number one producer of Fulbright scholars in the U.S.).

New Partnership Focuses on Cultural Heritage

UI Chancellor Phyllis Wise, Univ. of Birmingham President David Eastwood, and UI Interim Associate Provost for International Affairs Bryan Endres signed a memorandum of understanding March 11 forming a strategic partnership between the two internationally renowned institutions.

“Cultural heritage is, in fact, one of the most significant aspects of globalization.

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Under the TADCH rubric, CHAMP and IIICH co-sponsored an innovative workshop on the Illinois campus in May 2013 titled “Encoun-ters with Popular Pasts: Cultural Heritage and Popular Culture.” Papers resulting from this workshop will be published this summer by Springer Press, which has previously published five edited volumes from past CHAMP confer-ences, each addressing an important current issue in the heritage world such as human and cultural rights, the management of historic cities, ephemeral performances of identity, contested heritage, and cultural politics in China. “Encounters with Popular Pasts” marks the beginning of a new publication series with Springer.

This spring CHAMP and IIICH are again collaborating on an international collo-quium, with the topic “The Controversial Dead,” at which IIICH senior lecturer Roger White will be the keynote speaker. Two additional TADCH confer-ences will be held in England, in 2015 and 2016, around the themes of “Heri-tage and Media” and “Heritage, Literature and Landscape,” each with edited volumes comprised of the most insightful papers presented at the conferences. CHAMP and IIICH faculty will collaborate again in Spring 2017 on a whimsical exhibit at Illinois called “Trav-eling Home” that will examine their own peripatetic academic lives as represented by the souvenirs they buy on their many trips, and the ways these artifacts are displayed in their homes. “Traveling Home” prompts the professors to think about themselves as tourists in a reversal of their usual role.

In addition to faculty research, the CHAMP-IIICH collaboration is enthusiastic about its

educational mission. In August of this year, Helaine Silverman and Bryan Endres, interim associate provost for international affairs and associate professor in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics at Illinois, will lead a study abroad program to Birmingham and Shropshire focused on “Food and Heritage,” within the context of a campus-wide undergraduate student exchange program recently established between the two institu-tions. The most significant educational collabo-ration planned between CHAMP and IIICH is the development of a unique professional Master’s degree program in International

Heritage Management. Students in the new program will spend successive semesters at each university, with frequent co-teaching and embedded collaborative research experiences at sites around the world, which will form cap-stone projects for the students. There should

The University of Birmingham is one of only two universities worldwide with direct ties to UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Here is the world’s first iron bridge near Shropshire.

“The CHAMP–IIICH partnership presents a rare opportunity for Illinois faculty and students to enjoy unprecedented research and training access to a UNESCO site.

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Building a BRIDGE between the Midwest and the West MidlandsTiM BARNeS, DiReCTOR, iLLiNOiS STRATeGiC iNTeRNATiONAL PARTNeRSHiPS (iSiP)

The cities of Chicago, Illinois and Birmingham, united Kingdom have maintained a robust international sister city relationship since 1993. In many respects, the cities share a natural affinity with one another. Both Birming-ham and Chicago are second-cities (albeit Chicago is actually the third-largest city in the u.s.), with their own distinct identities, recognized for their industrial heritage and for their cultural and artistic contributions. Both have worked through transformations from economies based primarily on manufacturing to service and technol-ogy industries. Both boast significant ethnic diversity. And both are home to significant institu-tions of higher edu-cation and advanced research.

It was, in fact, this sister city relationship that first prompted the university of Birmingham to consider the greater Chicago region when developing its strategy for increased engagement with u.s. higher education. While Birmingham has developed some collaborative activities with Northwestern university and the univer-sity of Chicago, they soon recognized the need to look 150 miles south, to the university of Illinois at urbana-Champaign, for a truly comprehensive, “strategic” partnership. In terms of size, scope, and range of excel-lence, shared historical values, and institutional cultures, Birmingham’s “red-brick” university identity meshed well with one of the first public land-grant universities estab-lished under the Morrill Act here in the u.s.

When the university of Birmingham first approached our campus with a proposal to form a strategic partnership in support of their plan to engage more broadly with the greater Chicago region, the obvious question that arose was “is there faculty interest on both sides?” And so, rather than suggesting a grand, centrally-mandated Memorandum of Agreement trumpeting a new institu-tional partnership, our colleagues at Birmingham began instead to survey their faculty for existing connections,

and to invest in visits by small groups of faculty from both institutions to one another’s campuses. They canvassed our faculty and theirs, and identified opportunities for collaborations—research synergies and complemen-tarities, and unique study abroad opportunities for our students and theirs.

some three years later, the two institutions have devel-oped a broad-based collaboration, ranging from railway engineering to cultural heritage studies, linguistics to regional economics, and mathematics to biomedical

devices. Illinois faculty from our Colleges of LAs, FAA, Business, AHs, ACes, and education are actively collabo-rating, and student exchanges are planned to start as soon as this coming August. efforts to identify and coordi-nate faculty teams to respond to the

european union’s Horizon2020 research funding calls are underway. Corporate connections that can further ties between the universities and the cities of Chicago and Birmingham are being explored.

With this significant degree of faculty engagement and “ground-up” initiative now established, the central lead-ership of the two campuses have taken notice. Chancel-lor Phyllis Wise, along with Pradeep Khanna, associate chancellor for corporate and international relations, visited Birmingham in May 2013. David eastwood, presi-dent of the university of Birmingham, made a reciprocal visit to our campus in early March, when the two leaders entered into a general memorandum of understanding that formalized their intent to partner on this broader, more strategic level.

“We’re very excited to embark on this second prioritized partnership under our Illinois strategic International Part-nerships initiative,” noted Bryan endres, interim associate provost for international affairs. “Both institutions recog-nize the considerable potential for mutual benefit from the alliance, and we’re particularly enthusiastic about the prospect of the two universities serving as knowledge


The University of Birmingham is the original “red-brick” university in Birming-ham, UK. “Red-brick” is a term used to refer to six civic universities founded in the major industrial cities of England.

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LeANNe LUCAS, FReeLANCe wRiTeR, COLLeGe OF ACeS

The Global Leaders program in the Depart-ment of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) is a small but growing program that has a big impact in the lives of students. The initial aim was to provide students with a background in global issues in their chosen field and prepare them for practice in an international arena. In recent years, this has been expanded from its initial implementation in Construction Management to the department’s new cross-disciplinary programs.

Global Leaders in Construction Management (GLCM) began in 2005. The tenth class was admitted in the fall of 2013, and there are now 51 alumni, 10 working overseas.

“A construction project site can be a very intimidating place,” said Brent Young, four-year

director of GLCM. “It’s a high-energy culture with a lot of pressure. A student that goes through the full GLCM program meets a huge cross-section of people and visits a variety of sites. That kind of experience, over and over, is what gets the student ready. They get technical instruction in the classroom, but once they see it in the real world, it all makes more sense.”

Students are admitted to the class their senior year and remain with the program for two years through a Master’s degree. During that time they make two international trips in January and two domestic trips in March. They also make day trips each semester, so over the course of two years, they visit 20 to 40 con-struction sites.

In January 2013, a trip to Turkey gave the students some classic “real-world” experi-ence. When Young began planning the trip, his focal point was a visit to the construction site of the Marmaray tunnel, a railway tunnel underneath the Bosphorus Strait that creates a link between the Asian and European shores of Istanbul.

“This was an iconic project costing billions of dollars,” said Young. “It was very interest-ing from a technical point of view, as well as a cultural and historical standpoint. But while we were able to observe an engineering marvel, instruction on the technical details was dif-ficult due to the language barrier.”

Instead, a visit to the Izmit Bay Bridge, a 5,090-foot suspension bridge under construction, became the high point of the trip.

“This bridge will be the fourth longest suspen-sion bridge in the world when it’s finished,” said Young. “We spent a day with that team, and they were amazing. They gave a two-hour technical lecture to the students on building the bridge, then took us out on the site and showed us everything they’d just talked about.”

This past January, Young took 15 students to Brazil, where they visited construction sites in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, with a brief side trip to sightsee and swim in the historic village of Paraty. In São Paulo, they toured construction sites for high-rise residential buildings, a new subway line, a soccer stadium,

Cee expands Global Leaders Program

GLCM students pause for a group shot at the Aeropuerto Internacional de Viracopos airport expansion project in Campinas, Brazil, north of São Paulo. This approximately $1 billion expansion will allow the airport to accomodate 14 million more passengers per year and is intended to be complete by the beginning of the World Cup in June 2014.


and the new Viracopos airport. The group also visited the University of São Paulo, where they met with professors and students. The students were surprised to learn that Brazil-ian engineering students often work full-time in construction while earning their degrees. While demanding, this gives them a significant amount of work experience before they start practicing engineering.

In Rio de Janeiro, the group visited the explo-ration office for ExxonMobil and the construc-tion sites for the Olympic Village, Olympic Park, and the Porto Maravilha renovation, a project to replace elevated roadways with tunnels. They also toured a shanty town built on the side of a mountain overlooking the city.

“It was very moving and challenging for the students to see how people live when they have to build their own housing without any aid or regulation,” said Young.

The GLCM program receives all of its funding from corporate support, evidence of the pro-gram’s success. There are an ever-increasing number of applicants, and the program has 100 percent job placement.

The CEE department’s Sustainable and Resil-ient Infrastructure Systems (SRIS) program is the first of three new cross-disciplinary programs to implement its own Global Leaders program. Faculty in the SRIS program began the process in 2011. They wrote a proposal and secured funding for planning workshops and trips. Professor Barbara Minsker traveled to India to visit three institutes, and associate professor Yanfeng Ouyang traveled to China to make contacts there. Based on similar interests and goals in terms of sustainability issues, the team chose to work with the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM) for their first Global Leaders trip.

Students in the program were required to attend a half-semester class before the trip to learn about sustainability and resilience and Indian culture. They were divided into four teams: two teams worked on projects in transportation and two on projects related to water. They planned and defined the scope of their projects, and learned about Indian culture during visits to local heritage sites. After the

Rio de Janeiro is a city upside down, considering that the poorest areas have the best views. The GLCM students were treated to a tour of the Favela do Cantagalo, hosted by a student who has lived there all of his life. The stu-dents learned how the Favela residents build their own houses on the side of a mountain. Here, the students reached a point that is too steep for construc-tion, and thus affords the best views in the city.

GLCM students spent their last day in Brazil visit-ing Christ the Redeemer on Corcovado mountain in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

“This past January, Young took 15 students to Brazil, where they visited construction sites in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

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trip, each team completed independent study projects, supervised by a faculty member with expertise in that area.

Minsker and Research Assistant Professor Joshua Peschel traveled to Chennai, India, with their students in January 2013. They first toured rainwater harvesting sites with the director of the Chennai Rain Center to study how problems of water shortages and flood-ing could be avoided. A trip to the Chennai Metro Rail allowed them to see the challenges of developing an urban rail network in an area that has been built up for more than 1,000 years.

Next, they visited a wastewater treatment plant, where finding a cost-effective solution to the infrastructure corrosion caused by hydro-gen sulfide gas was high on the plant’s list of priorities. They also visited the Pallikaranai Marshland, where encroaching development and a massive open dump have led to flooding and water quality problems. A final visit was made to the IITM Intelligent Transportation Systems Laboratory, where work on remote sensing is being done to provide information on traffic conditions to help improve traffic congestion. Each team then worked several days, discussing how the concepts of sustain-ability and resilience could be integrated into the projects and writing project outlines and problem definitions, which they presented to their fellow students, professors and IITM faculty.

Ouyang and Peschel will head the next trip to Beijing, China, and students from both the SRIS and the cross-disciplinary Energy-Water-Environment Sustainability program will be part of the second Global Leaders class.

“It’s so important for our students to under-stand how doing civil and environmental engi-neering in another country is vastly different from the United States,” said Minsker. “They need to have a global perspective. It will make them more attractive to employers, and I think they will be more successful in the long run because they have that exposure.”

She said the program also teaches soft skills, such as writing and giving presentations, working on conflict resolution, and thinking through ethical issues. “I think that will really differentiate these students as they move into their careers.”

For more information, visit: glcm.cee.illinois.edu

GLCM students enter a drill and blast tunnel at the Porto Maravilha rehabilita-tion project of the Port of Rio in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This project includes 3 parallel tunnels approximately 1.5 kilometers in length, intended for car traffic to replace elevated roadways through the port area.

Students (IITM) examine a rainwater harvesting well outside San Thome Basilica with CEE Research Assistant Professor Joshua Peschel, foreground.

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http://glcm.cee.illinois.edu

be a ready-made market for this novel program given the growth in the number of cultural sites marketed as heritage for global tourism.

The collaboration between CHAMP and IIICH, with its emphasis on issues of cultural heritage, makes productive use of the formal affiliation between IIICH and the Ironbridge Gorge UNESCO World Heritage Site, which is the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. The CHAMP-IIICH partnership presents a rare opportunity for Illinois faculty and students to enjoy unprecedented research and training access to a UNESCO site. Birmingham has offered to provide facilities for a University of Illinois field station within the Ironbridge Gorge WHS, making the University of Illinois the first U.S. university with a physical presence in a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

IIICH’s close relationship with the Ironbridge Gorge Museums Trust has already yielded significant benefits for Illinois. Our Spurlock Museum has received on loan an important artifact of the Industrial Revolution: an original Coalbrookdale cooking pot. The loan of this important artifact is a precursor to a major loan exhibition of excep-tional industrial and consumer goods from Ironbridge Gorge that will be displayed at the Spurlock Museum and the Krannert Art Museum on the Illinois campus in Spring 2016. Faculty and students from both institutions will be involved in planning and curating the exhibition, and a major international conference on “Industrial Heritage” will coincide with its opening.

Cultural heritage—encompassing concepts of identity, politics, econom-ics, race, religion, ethnicity, colonialism, imperialism, globalization, appropriation, and ownership—can bring us closer together or—as easily—drive us further apart. Cultural heritage can contribute to inter-cultural understanding or cause devastating conflicts. Cultural heritage cannot be ignored in our increasingly interconnected world, and no amount of platitudes about global villages or admirable goals of foster-ing conscientious global citizenship can, or should, seek to minimize these issues. Fortunately, the unique partnership between Illinois and Birmingham is well positioned to contribute significantly to this crucial, ongoing dialogue within the broader concept of “globalization.”

For more information, visit: champ.anthro.illinois.edu

New Partnership Focuses on Cultural Heritage, continued from page 6

Paris was her last stop before attending The Wharton School at the University of Penn-sylvania, where she received a joint MBA in finance and an MA in international studies and German as one of 50 students admitted into the prestigious Lauder Institute program. While there, she interned at McKinsey Consulting in Munich, was a fellow with Nikko Securities in Japan, and travelled to Israel to consult with companies about exporting technology to the US.

McGrath’s international career took off once again after graduation: Procter & Gamble in France and Belgium, Disney Consumer Prod-ucts in France, and Sesame Workshop in New York, among other global marketing and licens-ing jobs, living and working in seven countries and traveling to 90.

Today, McGrath lives in Menlo Park, California, with her husband, Vincent, and sons Christo-pher, 7, and Thomas, 4. She is involved in her community as a political activist, ambassador for Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stan-ford University, and co-chair of Cultural Arts Day at her sons’ elementary school, where she has helped design the curriculum around the history and culture of India.

“Even though I grew up and studied in a land-locked state, which at the time wasn’t necessar-ily known as a hotbed for global opportunities, I was able to parlay my experience into an international career,” McGrath said. “I really hope that other students will be inspired to do the same.”

For more information, visit: giving.illinois.edu

Helping Global Studies Majors Go Abroad, continued from page 4


http://giving.illinois.edu

JAMeS KiLGORe, ReSeARCH SCHOLAR, CeNTeR FOR AFRiCAN STUDieS

On December 10, 2013 the Center for African Studies (CAS) organized a “Celebration of the Life of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela,” South Afri-ca’s first democratically elected president, who passed away on December 5. About 200 people packed the University YMCA for a program led by Provost Ilesanmi Adesida and three local South African residents who paid tribute to this legendary leader, political prisoner, and freedom fighter.

Merle Bowen, director of CAS, hosted the event, dedicated to a man she called an “iconic figure.” Provost Adesida turned a Shake-spearean soliloquy upside down to open the program, proclaiming that we had come to “praise Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, not to bury him.” From that time forward those in atten-dance got a taste of the breadth of the appeal of the man South Africans refer to as “Madiba.” Bheki Madela, a South African now pursuing a Ph.D. in the College of Education, reminded the crowd of Mandela’s famous saying, “no one is born hating.” He spoke movingly about “Baba Madiba’s” spirit of forgiveness and politi-cal insight. Madela also lit up the crowd by teaching them some famous call and response chants of the South African liberation struggle. Madela’s compatriots, Ken Salo and William Munro, stressed not only the achievements of

a democratic South Africa, but also the complexity of the post-1994 era, con-tinuing up to the present. Salo high-lighted the “paradox” of South Africa, offering the example of his own daughter who is the winner of a “Rhodes-Mandela” scholarship, bearing the name of both the arch British imperial-ist and Madiba. From his youth in South Africa he recalled

the importance of education in the liberation struggle, the centrality of developing a new way of looking at the world outside the racial-ized boundaries of apartheid. William Munro, a political science professor at Illinois Wesleyan, recalled how he took a week off of teaching duties in Bloomington to return home to vote for Mandela in the first democratic election in 1994. He spoke of Mandela’s capacity for two principles: empathy (often for political enemies) and a dedication to social justice.

“We all claim some connection to Mandela,” Munro added.

In addition to the South African speakers, Illinois faculty Teresa Barnes, Erik McDuffie, and African Students Organization represen-tative Brenda Sanya spoke, along with com-munity member and trade union leader Aaron Ammons. Amira Davis and her family provided an African music interlude. The concluding section of the program offered the microphone to the audience which brought stirring stories of Mandela’s capacity to inspire children, the local African American community, and Afri-cans from other parts of the continent. Each added their voice to the attempts to define the legacy of Mandela and the desire to balance Mandela’s contribution as an individual with his contribution as part of a collective.

Celebrating “Madiba”

UI Prof. Teresa Barnes addresses the crowd during the “Celebration of the Life of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela” event Dec. 10.

Prof. Thomas Bassett writes a message for Mandela during the Dec. 10 event.

“No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.

”—Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela


Unprecedented worldwide Celebrations

The events here were part of a worldwide string of tributes to Mandela. Likely no leader in world history has been the object of so much mourning, celebration, reflection, and adula-tion. In an age of social media, blog postings, Facebook dialogs, Twitter threads, and old email abounded on a scale surpassing anything seen in response to the passing of a politi-cal leader. While most national leaders are fortunate if they become heroes in their own country, Mandela rose from his Robben Island prison cell to become one of the most recogniz-able faces on all continents.

Anti-Apartheid Activities at illinois

During much of the apartheid era (1948–94) boycotts and sanctions cut South Africa’s politi-cal, economic, and cultural ties with the rest of the world. As early as 1977, students at Illinois formed the Champaign-Urbana Coalition against Apartheid (CU-CAA). Nearly a decade later, in June 1985, a demonstration pressing the University of Illinois Board of Trustees to divest from South Africa resulted in the arrest of sixteen Illinois students. At that point, some $21 million of the university’s $131 million in investments had ties to South Africa.

Mobilization in support of divestment con-tinued. In 1986, as part of a five-day protest, students erected shantytowns from scrap metal and wood on campus. On April 13, 300 students staged a mock riot; some dressed as South African police, while others acted as the oppressed.

The Board finally passed a resolution on January 14, 1987. The school began an 18-month period of divestment on May 31. However, the victory was largely symbolic; the board only divested $3.3 million.

illinois and South Africa Today

Today, the University of Illinois has a very different relationship with South Africa. A thriving exchange between the university and its South African institutional counterparts has emerged. The Mortenson Library has hosted several tours for South African librarians at Illi-nois as well as sponsored a leadership school attended by 23 future South African library managers. The World Histories from Below project brought South African film maker Daral Kell and a group of community activists

from the shack dwellers movement Abahlali base Mjondolo to campus last year. A leading South African authority on open access learn-ing, Professor Laura Czerniewicz took part in a conference sponsored by the CAS last fall. Even more important has been the opportunity for faculty to lead study abroad trips to South Africa. From the Colleges of ACES to Business to LAS, Cape Town, Pretoria, and Durban have become some of the most popular destinations for Illinois students both for short-term visits and full semester enrollments. The legacy of Nelson Mandela and the South Africa libera-tion struggle continues to grow, even right here in central Illinois.

For more information, visit: afrst.illinois.edu

A statue of Mandela in Parliament Square, London, is covered by those paying tribute.

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With nearly 10,000 international stu-dents enrolled at the University of Illinois in Fall 2013, aca-demic stakeholders knew improvements needed to be made to effectively meet the growing needs of students coming from abroad.

While many campus units actively serve international students, no one person was coordinating these efforts at a campus level or focusing solely on the issues at hand—and that’s where Dr. Nicole Tami comes in.

Tami, who received her Ph.D. in cultural anthropology at Illinois in 2008, worked on issues related to international education for over five years before stepping into her new role as the director for International Student Integration in August 2013.

“Serving international students is a campus-wide effort and we’re beginning to think about our international student population more sys-tematically,” Tami said. “I focus on the entire student experience, looking both at academic issues and experiences beyond the classroom.”

Tami has lived in the United States for more than 30 years, but she vividly remembers a time when she didn’t speak a word of English and had never tasted American staples like ketchup or peanut butter. Tami moved to the U.S. from Switzerland at the age of seven when her mother was accepted into a graduate program at the University of New Mexico. As an immi-grant, there is a personal component to Tami’s work.

“My mom worked hard to keep up. She replayed taped lectures late into the night because instructors spoke too quickly for her to

catch everything the first time around,” Tami said. “I know the amount of effort our interna-tional students put in to succeed.”

By talking to students as well as other adminis-trators and instructors who work with inter-national students, Tami has gotten a clearer sense of what the common challenges are for international students on campus. A student advisory board comprised of both international and domestic students, which she convened last fall, meets twice a month to help identify issues that are relevant for students and creates a space for them to offer suggestions on how to improve their experience.

“We’re also working much more actively with registered student groups like the Chinese Student and Scholar Association (CSSA) and [the] Korean Student Association (KSA) to learn what their concerns are, and collaborate on outreach initiatives targeted at new and incoming students,” Tami said. “Several inter-national student organizations have been doing their own pre-arrival coaching for students in their home countries for years and the univer-sity is starting to get involved in these efforts as well.”

More than 110 countries are represented on campus; since 2007, international student enrollment has increased about 78 percent. This year, almost 25 percent of incoming stu-dents are from other countries, according to International Student and Scholar Services.

“The resources that we have in place are quickly outgrowing our capacity,” Tami said. “With so many new students tapping into exist-ing services, the parameters of those programs need to be expanded and reassessed to accom-modate our growing student population.”

International students face many challenges both in and outside of the classroom.

“When you pair an international student from Tokyo with a domestic student from Chicago, in a roommate situation for example, each student filters the same interaction through the social and cultural lens they grew up with. Challenges arise when students don’t com-municate openly about the assumptions and expectations they’re bringing to the table and

Focusing on international Students

Nicole Tami is the director for international student integration at Illinois, a new position she began in August 2013.


“I know the amount of effort our international students put in to succeed.

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MATT vANDeRZALM, MANAGiNG eDiTOR

When Bo White is in the office, he always keeps an eye on the news.

While he is an ardent baseball fan, his interest in the latest current events goes well beyond that of a recent box score. Rather, his attention is usually directed toward the latest updates from around the world. More specifically, he is concerned with the more than 60 countries the University of Illinois sends its students to study abroad.

As the assistant director for international health and safety at Illinois, a newly-created position he has held since June 2013, White takes a lead role in the campus response to crises and emergencies abroad, and he serves as a resource for students, faculty, and administra-tors. He makes it his job to consider the impact of a natural disaster or political upheaval on the health and safety of Illinois students, as well as faculty and staff.

“We have to constantly be vigilant to what’s going on, and be ready to respond if need be,” White said.

The U.S. State Department issues travel warn-ings and alerts that help guide the university’s decisions regarding students and personnel in a particular country or region. However, moni-toring these messages is only a part of White’s role. During his first nine months on the job, he has responded to situations ranging from a full-scale evacuation to individual medical emergencies. White has experience in coping with these kinds of emergencies from nearly a decade working with international NGOs such as Food for the Hungry in Phoenix, AZ.

But he is not remaining purely reactive to potential problems. White also coordinates policies, procedures, and activities that support the safety and well-being of Illinois students, faculty, and staff traveling abroad for study, research, or other university activities. As such, he has spent much of his time proactively rein-forcing a firm plan for when emergencies arise.

“I think what Illinois has done really well is to have policies for crisis in place,” White said. “Due to staff turnover, and being such a large university, we could use improvement in

pre-departure train-ing and making sure we have a unified crisis response.”

White believes it’s crucial to educate students, as well as their parents, about the many issues that could arise while traveling abroad. Potential food and waterborne illness, dangerous roads and driving conditions, differing cultural norms, and physical security and safety in new environments are just some of the considerations to plan for when preparing for overseas travel.

He is also keenly aware that the health and safety of Illinois students going abroad cannot be left to one individual. Rather, it has to be a collaborative effort.

“One person is not going to ensure the health and safety of the well over 2,000 students that we send overseas every year, or the 10,000 that we host from abroad,” White said. “So I think it’s important that we know this is a catalyst role in a lot of ways, that this is a role that can centralize some things and create some momentum, but it’s not the cure-all.”

White, who grew up in Whiteside County in northern Illinois, also hopes that the university can continue to build an infrastructure that supports international growth. Illinois cur-rently ranks among the top 20 institutions in the nation for number of students studying abroad each year. With indications that study abroad is going to grow nationwide in the next 5–10 years, he sees the role of health and safety as critical for preparing for this demand.

“My ambition for this role is that it would free people up to think about growth because we have taken care of emergency response,” he said. “We have training that’s done on a regular

Keeping illinois Healthy and Safe

Bo White is the assistant director for international health and safety at Illinois, a new position created in June 2013. White was also recently named interim director of the campus Study Abroad Office.


“We have to constantly be vigilant to what’s going on, and be ready to respond if need be.

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underestimate cross cultural differences,” Tami said.

Yet, integration is not solely about international students—domestic students need to “become more attuned to the fact that international stu-dents play a meaningful role on this campus,” Tami said.

“International students bring unique cultural insights to Illinois. They draw upon diverse backgrounds and experiences that lead to dif-ferent perspectives from those of our domestic students,” she said. “Having students with alternate viewpoints in the classroom and in our dorms makes for a richer learning environ-ment and a more dynamic campus.”

When creating new resources, Tami said people should be mindful of the fact that inter-national students are not a homogenous group, but rather come from different economic, political, and cultural backgrounds–a student from a large city like Hong Kong has different adjustment challenges than a student coming from a small, rural town in China.

“It’s daunting for any freshman to negotiate the various bureaucracies and responsibili-ties they face when they first come to college,” Tami said. “For international students, that’s amplified by the fact they are also adjusting to a foreign culture and a completely new academic environment.”

Tami has begun to develop web resources for faculty, who teach and work with international students, as well as consolidate and reorganize existing resources for international students in an effort to make the breadth of resources for incoming students more accessible. She has also teamed up with units across campus to develop training workshops and support resources for staff and faculty. Raising aware-ness about issues related to cultural compe-tency and best practices when working with international students will help us to better serve this population, she said.

Tami and the campus at large are doing a better job of listening to international stu-dents. The International Student Barometer, a comprehensive survey that both international

undergraduate and graduate students were invited to take, solicited feedback about the students’ satisfaction surrounding different aspects of their campus experience. The survey was first conducted in 2012 and is part of a three-year assessment.

Results indicated that many students were highly satisfied with their overall educational experience at Illinois, but feedback also high-lighted areas that need improvement, such as arrival information and access to transporta-tion from Chicago to Champaign-Urbana.

“I think the university could do a better job in preparing our international students for their transition to Illinois, and we are actively working on that,” Tami said.

She has taken part in a campus-wide commit-tee to create pre-arrival videos that provide key information for incoming students. What to pack and what to leave behind, necessary docu-ments, tips for virtual advising, and even what to expect when it comes to Illinois weather are a few of the points highlighted in the videos, which will be available for incoming students this spring.

Tami believes that cooperation is key and encourages staff and students alike to contact her about new initiatives, resources, or collabo-rations geared at improving the experiences of international students. She not only reaches out to colleagues, but also partner institutions that are tackling similar challenges.

“My job allows me to interact with many dif-ferent people and that’s the most exciting part,” Tami said. “I believe in what I’m doing and am encouraged by the efforts we’re making as a campus to reach out to our international stu-dents. We have to be inclusive in our approach, that way students can decide what integration means to them and take ownership of their experience at Illinois.”

For more information, visit: Faculty page: international.illinois.edu/faculty/resources.html Student page: international.illinois.edu/students/resources.html

Focusing on international Students, continued from page 14

“International students are not a homogenous group, but rather come from different economic, political, and cultural backgrounds.

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http://international.illinois.edu/faculty/resources.html

http://international.illinois.edu/faculty/resources.html

basis, and people are equipped to handle things.”

White is no stranger to going abroad or the University of Illinois. He earned a Master’s degree in education from Illinois in 2009. He also studied abroad during his college days, traveling to the UK. Subsequently, his travels have taken him to more than 20 countries, including Rwanda, Peru, Russia, Nicaragua, and Sweden. He’s happy to return to his home state and help address the challenges that education abroad at a large research institution brings.

“I think it’s exciting to be part of a commu-nity that does have a history of sharing ideas and sharing information,” said White. “I think international education for me has been a way that, coming from a small town, has opened up a lot of the world and opportunity, and I would love to see that happen to other people.

Study abroad is something that is typically a high point for a lot of people and I think right now it’s often more available to those with access and means, so I think that’s an ongoing challenge, but also something that Illinois is positioned to tackle because we are also a pretty diverse campus.”

In April 2014, White added another title: interim director of the campus’ Study Abroad Office. In his new, temporary role, White hopes to build on Illinois’ already strong reputation internationally.

“We’re positioned to do some great things related to international education,” he said.

And, as always, he’ll keep an eye on the news.

For more information, visit: studyabroad.illinois.edu/resources/ health_safety/index.aspx

Keeping illinois Healthy and Safe, continued from page 15

Above: Tami said “having students with alternate viewpoints in the classroom and in our dorms makes for a richer learning environment and a more dynamic campus.”

Below: In their new positions, White and Tami often work together, indicative of the collaborative approach promoted by the Office of International Programs and Studies.

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http://www.studyabroad.illinois.edu/resources/health_safety/index.aspx

http://www.studyabroad.illinois.edu/resources/health_safety/index.aspx


During a year studying abroad in Dundee, Scot-land, Illinois alumnus Michael Vahl (’96) not only learned about Scottish culture, but also about himself and how big the world really is.

Vahl wants all students to be able to have the same eye-opening experience he had. That’s why in 2012, he established the Michael and Mary Ann Vahl Study Abroad Scholar-ship, available for students who are studying abroad in Scotland or other parts of the United Kingdom.

“I benefitted from my exchange in many dif-ferent facets,” Vahl said. “The United States is the greatest country in the world, but there are numerous places around the world to see and learn about too.”

Vahl has subsequently traveled to Ireland, France, England, Wales, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, and Austria, but said he hopes to journey to many more places. His time in Scotland helped him realize that the towns he called home for so long are only a small part of the world; he decided there was so much more for him to see beyond Champaign-Urbana and the Chicago suburbs.

“There are so many interesting people to meet and talk to. I heard a lot of wonderful stories about people from all over the world,” he said. “It’s an opportunity that every student should take advantage of if they can.”

Some of his fondest memories come from spending time with other students from around the world who were also abroad. Fascinated by how worldly and mature they were, Vahl said they explored their cultural differences and traditions, such as Halloween, a holiday that many of them hadn’t heard of.

“My flat mates and I had a Halloween party at our flat and it was one of the most entertaining nights of my life,” he said.

Learning about history from another country’s point of view was a unique experience for Vahl, especially when he learned about the Ameri-can Revolutionary War through the eyes of the “other side.”

“I had an American Revolutionary War class that was taught by an Englishman,” Vahl said. “So I’m getting taught from the other side of the fence. It was completely unbiased and one of the most interesting courses that I’ve ever taken. I had some awesome professors at Dundee.”

Vahl lives in St. Louis with his wife, Mary Ann, who is also a 1996 Illinois graduate, and their three children: Marnie, 10; Carson, 8; and Lucy, 5. He is a wholesaler and the vice president for Federated Investors, a financial services company.

Jonna Newberry, a senior in the College of LAS, was the first scholarship recipient, and recently returned from her Fall 2013 study abroad trip to the University of Glasgow in Scotland. Newberry originally didn’t know about the scholarship and had no intention of traveling to Scotland until the campus Study Abroad Office pointed her in that direction.

“It didn’t have a touristy feel to it, it was like an actual city,” Newberry said. “I’m from inner-city Chicago, so I liked being able to go to another city and compare how life is. I’m really glad that the Study Abroad Office was so helpful.”

Newberry wanted to experience the culture, people, and her Scottish heritage while she was abroad, and joined an international club to help her achieve her goals. The club allowed her to go on daytrips around the country to attrac-tions including Loch Ness, the Isle of Skye (a scenic island), the highlands, and Glencoe, the town where the James Bond movie “Skyfall” was filmed.

“I saw so many awesome things in Scotland,” Newberry said. “I’m just really appreciative that I got to see all these different places, it’s so different from the U.S. Everyone is so nice. In Scotland, there was this attitude that things will turn out for the best.”

Vahl hopes all students have an experience like Newberry had.

“I hope they gain more sense of the fact that there’s a lot of things in the world that are interesting and a lot of things to be learned about; go see the world,” he said. “Everybody

Michael and Mary Ann vahl Study Abroad Scholarship

Mary Ann and Michael Vahl created an annual scholarship last year for students studying abroad in Scotland and other parts of the United Kingdom.

“Vahl encourages students everywhere to participate in an exchange program if they have the opportunity.

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should have a thirst for knowledge and people; it’s such an exhilarating experience. I hope all University of Illinois students on an exchange program experience the whole nine yards on their journey, from people to academics.”

Vahl encourages students everywhere to par-ticipate in an exchange program if they have the opportunity. He believes traveling abroad makes students smarter, more mature, and all-around better people.

“I think it helps you interact with people and make friends even faster,” he said. “If you go to a foreign land not knowing anyone and come back home having learned more about the world and having made some new friends, that’s saying something.”

The Vahls plan on continuing their gift year after year.

“My wife and I hope it lasts forever,” Vahl said. “We are so proud and happy to help out stu-dents that want to study abroad. It’s very near and dear to my heart and always will be.”

For more information, visit: studyabroad.illinois.edu

Jonna Newberry visited sites such as Culzean and Urquhart Castle during her study abroad in Scotland.

Mike Vahl during his time studying abroad in Dundee, Scotland.

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http://studyabroad.illinois.edu

JiM DexTeR, COMMUNiCATiONS COORDiNATOR, iLLiNOiS SUSTAiNABLe TeCHNOLOGy CeNTeR

It seemed like a sustainable biofuel alternative was found in 2007.

The journal Nature reported that the inedible fruit of the Jatropha curcas tree met European technical standards for biofuel. The Prairie Research Institute’s Illinois Sustainable Tech-nology Center (ISTC) was poised to lend its assistance in researching the plant.

The good news for those interested in trans-portation fuels was that the oils extracted from the seeds performed well for power, efficiency and emissions. Jatropha was reported even richer in oil than soybeans, rapeseed and sunflower. For anyone interested in bring-ing sustainable energy to Haiti, the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation, the news was even better.

Jatropha is a semi-evergreen tree in the same family as poinsettias. It is a perennial and grows like a weed in dry climates on marginal lands. It resists pests and its roots aid against soil erosion.

Also in 2007, Partner for People and Place (peopleandplace.org), a U.S. non-profit orga-nization, established Jatropha Projenou (Our

Community Jatropha Project) in northeast Haiti to create a sustainable system based on the crop for subsistence farmers. ISTC envi-ronmental engineer Joe Pickowitz signed on to provide technical expertise to create the processing system that could turn Jatropha into biodiesel.

For Jatropha Projenou co-founder and Cham-paign native Kathleen Robbins, the best news about the promising biofuel crop is that it offers a chance to demonstrate the success of a tightly integrated, completely sustainable system.

From Cargo to Car Go

Jatropha Projenou leases plantation land from the government. Thirty seven acres are developed by the organization as a test field and demonstration plot. Another 110 acres are leased by more than 40 small farmers involved in several Haitian cooperatives.

During the five years needed for Jatropha trees to mature, Pickowitz busied himself assembling the apparatus that would turn their fruit into fuel. Each component had to be acquired in Illinois and sent to Haiti, where supplies were difficult to obtain. Smaller parts were checked as luggage when he flew to the facility. Sixty gallon containers, expellers, heaters, motors, pumps and other cargo were packed onto con-tainer ships for the voyage.

Similarly, on campus, the science of biofuel production is well-established. The critical variables are the energy content and composi-tion of the feedstock. Pickowitz started with a mill to remove the outer hull of the Jatropha. The seeds inside are heated and crushed in an expeller, separating the seed cake from its oil. A catalyst is added to begin the transesterifica-tion of the oil where the alcohol and fatty acids in the plant oil react to form mono-alkyl esters (biodiesel) and glycerol.

Those products are separated by decanting, and water is sprayed through the biodiesel to filter out contaminants. After a second decan-tation, air bubbles are blown through the fuel to evaporate remaining water. Finally, low-temperature distillation eliminates remaining contaminants. Pickowitz said this process is

Center Lends expertise for Biofuel Alternative in Haiti

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ISTC’s Joe Pickowitz trains Manager Georges Rondelin and worker Frisnell Felix how to prepare a batch of biofuel.


ideal for the job since this reaction occurs with low heat and pressure to yield a 95 percent conversion.

Food, Feed, or waste?

ISTC Senior Analytical Chemist John Scott has also studied Jatropha as part of the Haiti project. He has been particularly fascinated with its phorbol esters content, one of three compounds that make Jatropha varieties toxic (also hydrocyanic acid and curcin).

He sees great potential in the use of phorbol esters as a natural pesticide. China and India have shown research interest in the compound but little work has been done elsewhere, he said. The substance might represent a sustain-able weapon against insect-borne diseases. For instance, 80 percent of estimated malaria cases occurred in Ethiopia, India, Indonesia and Pakistan (World Malaria Report 2013). Three of those nations lie in the general latitudes where Jatropha occurs.

“I love making Jatropha oil in the lab,” Scott said. “It makes the whole lab smell like sesame oil.”

The odor of the Jatropha cake also reminds him of Snickers candy, so the palatability of the material as animal feed seems promising, he added.

“It is very rich in protein; it is a fascinating plant,” Scott explained.

Efforts on the island to hybridize the phorbol esters out of the native Haitian trees have yet to be verified in Scott’s lab, he said. Sustainable systems tend to protect an area’s biodiversity by focusing on indigenous plants rather than monocropping of non-toxic, imported strains as is being pursued in India.

Another problem for true sustainable agricul-ture in this case is that it is not easy to charac-terize phorbol esters. No source of reference material exists, so Scott has successfully used a compound used in cancer research that has a similar enough structure to fill in. Detecting phorbol esters also requires expensive equip-ment not common in Haiti.

There is a method to distinguishing between toxic and non-toxic animal feeds when both

types are part of the biofuel production, Scott explained. He has worked with colleagues at Illinois to propose a simple field test for toxic-ity by putting scored seeds in a glass jar with small insects.

A Five-year Mission

In 2010, the enterprise harvested its first truck load of Jatropha fruit, enough that it was turned into fuel to run their production genera-tors and tested in their tractor. The sustainable enterprise seemed to be coming into its own.

But subsequent harvests of the now full-grown Jatropha trees did not increase as antici-pated. The delivery of seeds was far below the assumptions in their business plan. The weather played a role. Northern Haiti is prone to intermittent rainfall (in part caused by de-forestation) but over the past three years, periods of drought have been punctuated by floods and devastating storms.

Although Jatropha had created much excite-ment worldwide, it turns out that high-yield production only occurs in good soil and with reasonable rainfall, conditions in which fuel competes with food. Continuing research has suggested that Jatropha can survive with as little as 9.8 inches of annual rainfall. It flowers and bears fruit starting at 23.6 inches. The

Jatropha Projenou Manager Rondelin receives the first truckload of Jatropha feedstock at the project’s production facility near the town of Paulette.


“Jatropha is a semi-evergreen tree in the same family as poinsettias. It is a perennial and grows like a weed in dry climates on marginal lands. It resists pests and its roots aid against soil erosion.

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vALeRie J. HOFFMAN, PROFeSSOR OF iSLAMiC STUDieS, DePARTMeNT OF ReLiGiON; DiReCTOR, CeNTeR FOR SOUTH ASiAN AND MiDDLe eASTeRN STUDieS

It was in the national archives of Zanzibar, in Tanzania, that I first came across manuscripts written by scholars of Ibadi Islam, a distinct sect that is neither Sunni nor Shi’ite and can be found in the Sultanate of Oman, among the Omani diaspora on the Swahili coast, and in small Berber populations in remote areas of Algeria, Libya, and Tunisia. Zanzibar had once been the capital of the great Omani empire, which had conquered the Swahili coast in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. A member of the Al Bu Sa’id family, Sultan Qaboos, continues to rule the Sultanate of Oman. In Zanzibar, the last sultan of that family was overthrown in a violent revolution in January 1964.

Ibadism emerged from the Kharijite seces-sion of 657, only 25 years after the death of the prophet Muhammad. Some Kharijites were fanatic and violent, but others espoused a quieter puritan spirituality; it is from this last group that the Ibadis emerged. Ibadis identify themselves as a moderate school of Islam and claim to be the oldest school of Islam.

The Indian Ocean was a surprisingly global world in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Omani empire on the Swahili coast was ethnically and religiously diverse. The rulers and some of the leading scholars were Ibadis of Omani descent, but most of the Swahili are Sunnis, and there are also Twelver Shi’a, Isma’ilis, Bohras, Ahmadis, Parsis, and Hindus. The army consisted mainly of Balu-chis and Persians, and Indians handled the finances and customs taxes. In the nineteenth century, Zanzibar became a center of Islamic scholarship, drawing scholars from Somalia, Lamu, Mombasa, and the Comoro Islands. The transoceanic mobility of scholars in the Indian Ocean is illustrated by the career of Abdallah Ba Kathir (1860–1925), who came from the northern Kenyan island of Lamu, studied first in Zanzibar and then in the Hadramawt region of southeast Yemen and in Mecca, taught in

Java, adjudicated a dispute in Cape Town, and founded a school in Zanzibar.

I traveled to Oman for the first time in 2000 as a Fulbright scholar attached to the Department of History in Sultan Qaboos University in the capital, Muscat. Like most travelers, I fell in love with the country immediately. A land of stark desert and mountains, of picturesque vil-lages, beautiful white beaches, turquoise ocean waters, and scrupulously polite people, the Sultanate of Oman had been somewhat isolated until 1970, when Sultan Qaboos inaugurated a period of rapid modernization. Today, the Sultanate of Oman is comfortably modern and very beautiful. Flowers line the main thoroughfare in the capital, and beautifully ornate artwork adorns many roundabouts. My research in Oman resulted in the first English-language book on Ibadi theology, The Essen-tials of Ibadi Islam (Syracuse University Press, 2012). In 2010, I returned to Oman as a Carn-egie scholar with a project entitled “Islamic Sectarianism Reconsidered: Ibadi Islam in the Modern Age.”

My research in Zanzibar and Oman prompted me to seek ways to promote knowledge about Oman, Ibadi Islam, and Indian Ocean history at the University of Illinois. It was wonderful, therefore, to learn on October 11, 2012, that the Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center (SQCC) in Washington had awarded the Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (CSAMES) a grant in the amount of $26,500 to enable us to do just that, specifically:

1. enhance the University of illinois Library’s collection on Oman and ibadi islam, with the goal of making the Library’s collection on these subjects the best in North America. Since January 2013, the Library has acquired 323 new volumes on Oman and Ibadi Islam.

2. A Summer Research Laboratory (SRL) for Middle eastern and islamic Studies and workshop on ibadi Bibliography will be conducted at the International and Area Studies Library May 19 through August 8 in order to promote the Library’s Arabic collec-tion (56,395 books and 3,599 serials) and attract

Discovering Oman, ibadi islam, and the indian Ocean

“A land of stark desert and mountains, of picturesque villages, beautiful white beaches, turquoise ocean waters, and scrupulously polite people, the Sultanate of Oman had been somewhat isolated until 1970.

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scholars to come and use it. The SRL will feature a workshop on Ibadi bibliography on July 14, 2014, in which I will be joined by Adam Gaiser of Florida State University, a specialist in early Ibadism.

3. An academic conference on “The indian Ocean: History, Networks, and Spaces of the imagination” will be held on our campus October 16–17, 2014. This conference will feature a keynote lecture by Abdul Sheriff, Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Dar Es Salaam and former Director of the Zanzibar National Archives, in addition to talks by 17 other scholars. The conference speakers represent nine different nations and will cover the entire breadth of the Indian Ocean.

4. A workshop for elementary and second-ary school teachers and teacher-training students on “integrating the indian Ocean into world History” will be held on October 18, 2014.

5. A team-taught, interdisciplinary, under-graduate course on Muslim cultures and societies will be developed, encompassing all Muslim-majority areas, including South Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Southeast Asia, the Balkans, and Central Asia, as well as Muslim minorities in the West, to explore modern Muslim identity and the social, cultural, and economic changes taking place among Muslims from a global perspective. This course is still in the planning stage, but it is hoped that it will be inaugurated in Fall 2015.

The Sultanate of Oman is a beautiful, safe, and hospitable country. The University of Illinois recently concluded an agreement with the Center for International Learning (CIL, omancenter.org) in Muscat, which has a superb Arabic language program, as well as lectures and courses on Omani culture, environment, and history. The partnership between the University of Illinois and CIL enables Illi-nois students to study at CIL for credit and to qualify for scholarships from CIL. I hope that students on our campus will take advantage of this wonderful opportunity.

For more information, visit: csames.illinois.edu

Clockwise from top left: Al Jalali Fort is located in the harbor of Muscat, Oman, and has been standing since the 1590s. Today, the former prison, refuge, and fort serves as a private museum of Omani culture.

Nizwa Fort is a large castle in Nizwa, Oman, and is the country’s most visited national monument.

The Mihrab in the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque shows Muslims which way to face during prayer to be in the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca, the holy city.

Established in 2001, the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque in Muscat, Oman, is the main Mosque in the Sultanate of Oman.

Books on Oman and Ibadi Islam purchased with funds from the Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center have made the University collec-tion one of the best in North America on these subjects.

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http://omancenter.org/

http://csames.illinois.edu

STePHANie CHUNG, PH.D. STUDeNT, DePARTMeNT OF SLAviC LANGUAGeS AND LiTeRATUReS

In Fall 2013, the University of Illinois College of Liberal Arts and Sciences honored Dr. Ralph Fisher as one of 25 prominent people in its Centennial Gallery of Excellence, for establish-ing and developing the Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center (REEEC) at Illinois.

When Fisher first came to Illinois in 1958, Illinois was not a major center for Russian and East European Studies. In his memoir, Swim-ming with the Current (1992), Fisher remarks that in a 1956 U.S. State Department publica-

tion identifying the country’s academic centers on the region, “Illinois had not even been listed among the also-rans.” In fact, other Midwestern institutions like the University of Chicago, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin were “far ahead.” Accord-ing to Fisher, “there was no obvious, altruistic-sounding sales pitch for adding a Russian center in east-central Illi-nois.” From these humble beginnings, Fisher built Illinois

into one of the most important academic and research centers for Russia, Eastern Europe, and Eurasia, not only in the U.S., but around the world. From 1959 to 1987, Fisher was direc-tor of the Russian and East European Center. In his memoir, Fisher humbly states that he “might more precisely have been called ‘facili-tator’ or ‘promoter’” describing his role as “that of helping others to do what they wanted to do and responding to their encouragement and appreciation.”

Larry Miller, the senior Slavic bibliographer and collection development officer at the University of Illinois Libraries, affirms the significance of Ralph Fisher’s legacy. He was the first Slavic librarian at Illinois, who came to

Champaign-Urbana in 1959, from the Indiana University Library School, where he received a degree that combined library science and Slavic Studies. Fisher needed a Slavic librarian to catalog all the Russian books he had purchased, a build-up of the Russian collections that was completely his initiative and enthusiastically supported by the University Library. Miller began his Illinois career as the Slavic cataloger. In his third year at Illinois, he became the acting head of Slavic acquisitions, which meant that he was also a member of the Russian and East European Center’s executive committee.

The Center maintained strong connections with other departments around campus. Start-ing in 1963, it sponsored undergraduate and graduate programs in Russian language and literature, and East European and Russian Studies. The Center’s wealth of scholarly resources helped its different departmen-tal affiliates to attract and retain top faculty. By 1971, the Center had around 38 faculty members whose teaching concentrated on or incorporated Russia and Eastern Europe. Some of them are still teaching at Illinois today, including Keith Hitchins (history) and Peter Maggs (law).

Throughout his career, Fisher emphasized the importance of an outstanding library for research and scholarship. He was a huge sup-porter of the library and knew how important a wealth of academic resources was for the Center. Miller remembers that Fisher could be very convincing and firm in his passion for the library. Robert Downs, the dean of the University Library at that time, was amazed at the level of support among the faculty. In his interactions with Downs, Fisher developed a solid commitment from the University Library to build major collections in order to attract students and faculty, collections that would rival those at Columbia, Berkeley, and Harvard. He constantly urged Miller to take advantage of special opportunities to buy books and add to the library’s already impressive collection. According to Miller, having Fisher’s enthusias-tic support was a “dream come true.” Fisher’s relationship with Downs and his active fund-raising led to the University of Illinois hosting the Midwest Slavic Library Conference in 1964. By that year, Illinois already had the largest

Reflections on the Founding of ReeeC

Fisher was honored for establishing the Russian, East European, and Eurasian center (REEEC).


Slavic collection in the Midwest, a feat accom-plished in less than six years.

One of the most fruitful and long-lasting partnerships between the REEEC and the University Library is the Summer Research Laboratory (SRL), which celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2013. From its beginning in 1973, it was open to what Fisher describes as “any qualified professional with a reasonable-look-ing research project, up to the limit of the funds we could find for housing.” In particular, Fisher sought out “those many people who, although well trained, were teaching in small institutions or had heavy teaching loads or had been out of academic life for a while.” Concurrently, the Slavic Reference Service (SRS) developed as a broad reference service for anyone who needed help in finding books or citations. “It became the centerpiece of everything,” Miller said. The SRS was able to obtain materials that were missing from North American libraries. The focus on the individual scholar, who could be a graduate student or a senior faculty member, was truly what distinguished SRL and SRS from other programs and services worldwide.

Larry Miller also noted the strengths of the very close relationship between the Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center, and the library, which began under Ralph Fisher. Miller praised the immense degree of cooperation between REEEC and the Library. REEEC has

“by far the most productive library-center partnership,” fueled by “much more intense connections.” A highlight of this partnership during the 2013–14 academic year was the visit of Zeljko Komsic, the chairman of the Presi-dency of Bosnia and Herzegovina. According to Larry Miller, the connection between REEEC and the University Library is a “model for other centers to follow.”

Fisher’s legacy continues through the Ralph and Ruth Fisher Forum, a colloquium bringing world-renowned scholars to the Illinois campus during the summer, as well as all the program-ming that REEEC supports. In the conclusion of Swimming with the Current, Ralph Fisher notes his amazement at the success of REEEC. “I see most of all the role of good people and luck. We had no grand design. We depended heavily on the good will of others.” That good will has continued to this day.

For more information, visit: reeec.illinois.eduDr. Ralph Fisher was honored as one of 25 prominent people in the College of LAS Centennial Gallery of Excellence.

Fisher, Steinberg, and Prof. Donna Buchanan

Fisher smiles for the camera with Department of History Chair Diane Koenker and history Professor Mark Steinberg.


http://www.reeec.illinois.edu

MiKe HeLeNTHAL, NewS eDiTOR, Ui New BUReAU; MATT vANDeRZALM, MANAGiNG eDiTOR

With hundreds of new Chinese students enrolling annu-ally at Illinois, and thousands of alumni already living and working in China, there’s little doubt the university has a strong presence there.

That presence has become more tan-gible as the university

opened its first office in Shanghai in December.

Set in a corporate center in the heart of the city of over 20 million people, the office is part of a State of Illinois China office, which is managed by the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity. The office is expected

to solidify and expand the university’s relation-ships in China.

“The main goal we have is to promote higher education,” said Pradeep Khanna, the associ-ate chancellor for corporate and international relations in the Office of Public Engagement at Illinois. “China is a big source of students for us and it’s important to be fully engaged with them. This office will help us better serve our stakeholders in China.”

In addition to providing some support to students, university leaders foresee the office as a central point in forging new relationships with Chinese academic and business leaders, Khanna said.

With more than 4,500 Chinese students on the Urbana-Champaign campus as of Fall 2013, thousands of Chinese Illinois alumni living in China, and dozens of partnerships with Chinese universities, having a physical pres-ence there is important in maintaining con-nections with these groups, according to Bryan Endres, interim associate provost for interna-tional affairs.

Ui Opens Office in Shanghai

Illinois Chancellor Phyllis Wise talks with alumni during the inauguration ceremony of the new office in Shanghai, China, on Dec. 9.

First Row (L–R): Zachary Zhao, Pradeep Khanna, Phyllis Wise, Paul Magelli, Larry DeBrock, Jimmy Hsia

Second Row (L–R): Paula Besson, Lucinda Morgan, Ron Watkins, Raj Echambadi, Bryan Endres, Rajeev Malik, Rebecca Linder Blachly, Scott Koeneman, Bonny Xu

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“Illinois has a long and rich relationship with China, and we are honored to have so many exceptional Chinese students on our campus,” said Endres. “This office will allow us to con-tinue to build on and grow the many and strong relationships with Chinese alumni, businesses, and academic institutions, as part of a broader global engagement strategy.”

Though an inauguration ceremony for the office was held Dec. 9 in China, the office won’t become fully operational until it is staffed. As of March 1, two of the positions were close to being filled, according to Sarah Zehr, the director of operations for the Office of Public Engagement, who will oversee the new office in China. A third position will be filled at a later date.

Zehr, who will be based in Urbana, will serve as the main campus contact for the new office, which will be staffed by an assistant director and two program specialists.

She said the goals for the new office include bringing together recent U. of I. graduates and corporate human resources officials to promote employment opportunities; forging academic partnerships with Chinese universities; sharing economic development opportunities in East Central Illinois; and increasing communication for U. of I. alumni living in China.

“We want to reach out in several directions,” Zehr said. “We’d like to enhance the relation-ships we already have and build new ones along the way. Having an office there is an important first step in improving communication.”

“It will allow us to work more closely with alumni and to make academic and business contacts that may lead to new collaborations,” Khanna said. “We are very excited about the opportunities this office will bring to the uni-versity and the state of Illinois.”

The office is in the Shanghai Centre, a corpo-rate complex. Staffing costs are shared, using some campus funds as well as investments by the College of Business, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and the College of Agricul-tural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences.

For more information, visit: international.illinois.edu/china-ui.html

optimum range for fuel productions is now estimated at 39.3–59 inches of rain. Normal rainfall in northeast Haiti is 27.5–31.5 inches per year.

What has been learned through this Haiti experience? Robbins suggests there is still much work to be done, but an answer is in sight. A 2013 New York Times article1 confirms that plant science could supply the answer to this dilemma.

Jatropha Projenou depends on local wild species of a plant that may have more than 10,000 genotypes. The future of Jatropha bio energy seems to lie in the science of genom-ics and plant sciences, Robbins said. Some commercial ventures are showing increased yields with hybrid plants.

“The next chapter in the Jatropha story may be plant science,” Robbins said.

Yet Pickowitz, Scott and Robbins agree too much has been achieved to give up on Jatropha Projenou. They have overcome a number of difficulties—most critically, the trust of local farmers—to walk away now. They have succeeded in building a system capable of producing 75 gallon batches of biofuel every two days. Plans are going forward to investigate irrigation strategies, and to add solar energy and other improve-ments to the apparatus.

For more information, visit: istc.illinois.edu

1 nytimes.com/2013/12/25/business/energy-environment/start-up-makes-gains-turning-jatropha-bush-into-biofuel.html?_r=0 “Start-Up Uses Plant Seeds for a BioFuel”

Center Lends expertise for Biofuel Alternative in Haiti, continued from page 21

“With more than 4,500 Chinese students on the Urbana-Champaign campus as of Fall 2013, thousands of Chinese Illinois alumni living in China, and dozens of partnerships with Chinese universities, having a physical presence there is important in maintaining connections with these groups.

”


http://international.illinois.edu/china-ui.html

http://www.istc.illinois.edu

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/25/business/energy-environment/start-up-makes-gains-turning-jatropha-bush-into-biofuel.html?_r=0



International Programs and Studies University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 507 E. Green, Suite 401 Champaign, IL 61820

PHONE: 217.333.6104 FAX: 217.265.0810 EMAIL: [email protected] WEB: international.illinois.edugiving: giving.illinois.edu

The Iron Bridge that lends its name to the Ironbridge Unesco World Heritage Site near Birmingham, UK.

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bridges to bring together crucial expertise in service of the cities of Chicago and Birming-ham, as well as the state of Illinois and the West Midlands region.”

Perhaps most exciting about the Illinois–Birmingham partnership is the constellation of activities that fall broadly under the rubric of “cultural heritage and identity.” The university of Birmingham is one of only two universities worldwide with direct ties to uNesCo World Heritage sites (in the case of Birmingham, the Ironbridge Gorge WHs). Birmingham is also home to the Barber Institute of Fine Arts, considered to be one of the finest museums in england, and to the shakespeare Institute in nearby stratford-upon-Avon. The connection between the Ironbridge International Institute of Cultural Heritage (IIICH) and our own interdisciplinary Collaborative for Cultural Heritage Management and Policy (CHAMP)

Building a BRiDGe between the Midwest and the west Midlands, continued from page 7

is particularly robust and well-developed. shared museum exhibits, annual symposia, and publications are well underway. This cultural heritage connection has prompted a branding of the Illinois–Birmingham partnership as BRIDGe (BiRmingham-Illinois alliance for Discovery, enGagement and Education), with the iconic Iron Bridge itself serving as a basis for the partnership’s logo.

For more information, visit: international.illinois.edu/partnerships/isip.html

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Documents

Spring 2014 review final pdf