Worldwide Connections

Cal State Fullerton Offers Myriad Global Study,
Work and Cultural Exchanges

April 1, 2008
by Mimi Ko Cruz, Russ L. Hudson, Gail Matsunaga, Pamela McLaren
and Valerie Orleans

As technology becomes more accessible, academicians all over the world are connecting — sharing ideas and collaborating on research, scholarship and a wide range of other projects. Little wonder that President Milton A. Gordon has led the campus consensus that partnerships and programs with universities and other organizations around the world are essential if Cal State Fullerton is to fulfill its mission to be a regional university with a global perspective.

Here are a few examples of the university’s many international
programs, partnerships and faculty projects:

• The College of Humanities and Social Sciences sponsors four study-abroad programs for students in South Africa, Italy, Spain and England, where they can earn up to 12 units of credit. Faculty members accompany students and teach the courses.
• Maqsood Chaudhry, professor of electrical engineering, has formed a “Partnership for Women in Science, Technology and Engineering in Pakistan.” Funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, the two-year program will enhance the capacity of Fatima Jinnah Women University in Rawalpindi and Sardar Bahadar Khan Women University in Quetta to train more women in science, technology and engineering. Financial assistance will be given to 12 women to pursue graduate study at their universities and at Cal State Fullerton. In addition, efforts will be made to attract more high school girls in Pakistan to study science, technology and engineering, and to initiate joint research projects between Fullerton and the two Pakistani universities.
• More than 30 artists from the United States, China, South Africa, Slovenia, France, Ecuador and Netherlands have lived and worked at Grand Central Art Center in Santa Ana as part of the Art Department’s Artist-in-Residence Program. At the university’s invitation, each artist spends from one week to four months living and working in proximity with the 27 visual arts graduate students whose apartments and studios are within the center.
• The Steven G. Mihaylo College of Business and Economics offers a summer program: Business Europe Study Tours (BEST). It offers study and travel in six European countries. Developed to enhance the breadth of business education offered to campus students and to encourage them to consider global career opportunities, the program also hosts European students. It offers faculty exchanges between CSUF and European universities, as well. For more information, visit: http://projekte.fhnw.ch/best.
• Kari Knutson Miller, chair and professor of child and adolescent studies, takes students to China each year for a summer practicum as part of their fieldwork course. Now in its fourth year, the course awards three units of credit and teaches students Chinese history, culture and educational practices. In China, the students engage in reflective practice at Changshu Foreign Language School and gain firsthand understanding of the country’s cultural values.
• Each summer, the university’s Minority Health and Health Disparities International Research Training Program, funded by the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities/National Institutes of Health, sends students from underrepresented groups to do medical research at partner universities in England, Thailand and Argentina. The purpose of the program is to raise student awareness of international health problems and to seek novel approaches to address them. For more information, visit http://biology.fullerton.edu/mtolmasky/MHIRT%20website.
• An annual exchange of Brazilian and U.S. students and faculty is part of the U.S.-Brazil Higher Education Consortia, funded by the U.S. Department of Education Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education. Cal State Fullerton and the University of Connecticut partner with University of Vale do Paraiba in Sao Jose dos Campos and Fluminense Federal University in Niteroi to develop a sustainable coastal resource management program.
• The American Language Program provides intensive English courses to prepare international students for study in a
  U.S. college or university. Students from more than 63 countries have attended the program and many have completed their degrees on campus. For more information, visit http://alp.fullerton.edu.
• Each fall, up to four theater students from Wales’ Trinity College spend a semester studying their craft on campus. In the spring, CSUF students travel to Wales to study at Trinity. Joan Melton, professor of theatre and dance, and Kevin Matherick, head of faculty for Trinity’s School of Theatre and Performance, have “traded places” and directed student productions of Dylan Thomas’ “Under Milkwood” at their counterpart’s institutions.
• Two Cal State Fullerton faculty members and as many as eight students go to Thailand annually for the Environmental Science Research program, funded by the Associated Students as an Instructionally Related Activity. Research focuses on utilizing the environment in sustainable ways to create useful products, increase crop yield and reduce diseases.
• The College of Engineering and Computer Science offers an online master’s degree in software engineering in China. As part of the program, CSUF professors teach the courses for students from international corporations such as Sony, Rockwell, IBM and Panasonic in Dalian, which is the equivalent of California’s Silicon Valley.
• The campus ROTC program this summer will begin offering an annual summer internship in Slovakia, where a student will be taught about the culture and history of the country and participate in training with the Slovak National Defense military.
• Tony Fellow, chair and professor of communications, created International Media Workshops in Florence two years ago. The five-week summer program offers CSUF students courses on Italian cinema and feature writing.