Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

2011-2012 internationalization activities

Fall 2011

• On September 29 and 30, PCC held a two-day symposium entitled Shifting Trade Winds: APEC, Globalization and The Pacific Northwest. The first night was located at Rock Creek’s event center, where David Hellman gave the keymicrofnote address, followed by a panel presentation from local business leaders. The following day’s speaking events, held at Cascade Campus, included talks by Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Andrea G. Arai, Michael Michalak,and Chris McNally with concluding remarks by Peter Hershock.
• Friday, October 7, the Asian Studies Committee and the Internationalization Initiative welcomed Fulbright scholar Stany Thomas at a reception at SE Campus’s “The Great Hall” from 3:00 to 4:30 pm. There were also other similar events held throughout the district.
• October 19, 2012 Professor Lamia Karim, University of Oregon, Anthropology, spoke on “Microfinancing and its Discontents”, based on her book on the subject matter. Dr. Karim based her research on fieldwork she has done in her native Bangladesh.
• October 20, 2011 Rami G. Khouri spoke to nearly 300 attendees on Oct. 20 at Westminster Presbyterian Church. PCC’s Internationalization Initiative co-sponsored this event.
• Also on November 16, 2012, a group of faculty and staff racked their brains for the answers at the fourth annual” World Quest Trivia Night for Grownups” held at Oaks Amusement Park. This year’s PCC participants included: Peggy Attia, Christine Richards, John and Tina Sparks, Bonnie Starkey and Takako Yamaguchi. Congratulations for this group garnering a tie for third place, the highest our PCC team has achieved at this event!
• On November 29, 11:00 to 1:00 PM at Cascade Campus, we held the first in a series of film screenings and lectures: The documentary: “Mexico and Peru: The Hidden Race” The speaker: Dr. Carlos Aguirre, Professor of History and Director of Latin American Studies at University of Oregon.

Winter 2012

• On January 13, at PCC’s downtown center, The Internationalization Initiative held two CIEE Curriculum Workshops, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, aimed at those individuals who have gone on a CIEE trip (both faculty and administrators). Panelists included Marlene Eid, John Mery, Torie Scott, Takako Yamaguchi, Tee Komashita and Elizabeth Bilyeau.
• On both Monday, February 20 and Tuesday, February 21, 2012, Salam Sabri presented at both Sylvania’s art gallery, as well as Elizabeth Bilyeau’s art history class on Iraqi modern painters and their stolen works. These two talks were in collaboration with PSU’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies bringing Dr. Sabri to Portland, Oregon.
• The weekend of February 24, the internationalization initiative sponsored several faculty to attend the annual CCID (Community Colleges for International Development) national conference in New Orleans. Faculty who joined our steering committee members include: Alexa Maros (Business Administration, Cascade), Annie Crater (Biology, SE Campus), Maria Wilson-Figuerora (Sociology and Women Studies, Cascade) and Gregg Meyer (Civil and Mechanical Engineering).
• On three subsequent days, starting Tuesday, February 28, Professor Claire Washington spoke to PCC students and staff after they viewed another segment of the PBS series, “Black in Latin America” This particular talk was on the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
• On Thursday, March 15 from 4:00 to 5:00 pm, Rafia Zakaria spoke on Women and her home country of Pakistan, as part of her trip to Portland to be the keynote speaker at the Lewis and Clark Gender Symposium.

Spring 2012

• Tuesday, April 10, PCC’s Japanese Department held a one-year commemoration of the Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan. The event featured student presentations, Japanese music and poetry. The featured guest was Reverend Jundo Gregory Gibbs.
• Thursday, April 12, and Friday, April 13, 2012 Professor Nyla Ali Khan, Visiting Professor from Univeristy of Oklahoma, spoke about Kashmir.
• Friday, April 20 and Saturday, April 20, The China Cohort held its annual “China Lectures” as part of a Title VI grant. Friday, Dr. Stanley Murashige lectured on Chinese Art, followed by Dr. Roger Ames speaks on “Confucian China in a Changing World Order“. On Saturday, Dr. Ames finished with “Confucian Role Ethics: A Challenge to the Ideology of Individualism”. In addition to the public events, two special sessions supported the core group of PCC faculty – “The China Cohort” – as they designed courses and added modules to existing courses focused on China.
• On Wednesday, April 25, Spanish Instructor Libardo Mitchell gave a repeat performance of his talk on his journey back home Columbia that he originally presented during International Week.
• On Friday, April 27, at Cascade Campus, Dr. Sunil Khanna, Assistant Provost for OSU’s International Program, spoke with our Internationalization Steering Committee about his own experience with his college’s process of internationalization.
• Wednesday, May 16, from 1-3:30pm, as part of the annual Asian Studies Focus Award, Lawrence Kominz and his theater crew performed several short pieces that represent distinct Japanese theater genres.
• During the month of May, 2012 after a screening of Black in Latin America: Cuba: The Next Revolution, Dr. Pedro Ferbel-Azcarate, Professor of Black Studies at PSU, led a discussion about the film on all three campuses. In this particular segment, Henry Louis Gates Jr. explores how culture, religion, politics and music of this island are inextricably linked to the slave labor imported as a means to run the 19th-century sugar industry. This segment also discusses how race and racism have fared since Fidel Castro’s Communist revolution in 1959.
• On Wednesday, May 30, 2012, Sylvania’s ESOL department organized a Speed Culturing Repeat Performance. Participants were granted a passport, and then placed every six or seven minutes with a student from another country and culture. During this time period, both parties talked about a variety of predetermined topics: family, holidays, work culture, education, women’s rights, etc. This experiential learning was a slightly disorienting, rich and human experience.
• Throughout the year, the Rock Creek World Languages presented a Film Series with its final film, Los lunes al sol (Mondays in the Sun), a film from Spain starring the Academy Award nominated actor Javier Bardem, airing on Thursday, June 7.