News Release
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December 6, 2005
Boise State Researchers Travel the Globe as 'Ambassadors'
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Jim
Cook, top, Greg Raymond, middle, and Todd Shallat |
Got a burning question about human resource management issues in Latvia,
French-speaking writers in Mexico or Irish dramatists? Ever wonder about
early burial practices in Guyana or how Eurasian cheatgrass made its way
into your back yard? *
Boise State University professors regularly travel to all corners of the
globe in search of answers to these and other ponderables. Outside of
academic circles, such travel and culturally specific areas of research may
seem trivial, or even wasteful. But global travel opportunities not only
provide faculty with a chance to advance their own research, they also allow
them to act as ambassadors for the university and for Idaho.
“Abroad we explain Idaho to the world. At home, we explain the world to
Idaho,” said Todd Shallat, a history professor and director of the Center
for Idaho History and Politics, who recently returned from delivering a
lecture on the New Orleans levees at The Hague in The Netherlands. “Universities,
our embassies, disseminate cultures and customs in a language that prepares
our students for the global marketplaces. As a faculty, we pride ourselves
in the university’s ability to touch the remotest corners on Earth.”
Honors College Director Greg Raymond agreed. His research in the fields of
foreign policy and world politics has taken him throughout Europe, Asia and
Latin America. “Whenever I lecture abroad or consult with foreign officials,
I enthusiastically tell the story of Boise State University and its Honors
College,” he said. “In an age of accelerating globalization, I have the
opportunity to make connections that can serve Boise State students as well
as the larger community.”
Students also benefit when professors from outside the United States bring
their cultures to Boise. Xabier Irujo, a specialist from the Basque country
who grew up in Venezuela, shares his culture with Idaho students enrolled in
the Basque studies program. “It is important to open our minds to other
cultures, societies, economies and ways of living,” he said. “I think that
we can give all that to our students so they understand how important it is
to travel in order to know ourselves.”
Following is a brief sampling of Boise State faculty whose travels enrich
their research and teaching.
• Music Department chairman and pianist Jim Cook has been to China
three times to teach at the Shanghai Conservatory. In addition, he is a
specialist on performance practice styles and has toured Europe, performing
chamber music and solo concerts in Paris, Munich and Vienna. He was also a
featured artist at the International Haydn Festival in Fertod, Hungary.
Studying and teaching abroad, Cook said, helps us view our world as one
diverse culture and allows us to appreciate the art and culture of other
civilizations. “It makes for better understanding and closer relations
between people,” he said. The downside is that broadening one’s horizons can
lead to impatience with those who view the world in a smaller compartment.
“Perhaps individuals have to demonstrate a natural curiosity before they are
able to expand their thinking and realm of experience,” he said.
• Communication professor Ed McLuskie is a two-time Fulbright Scholar
(to the Republic of Georgia and to Austria) who has also lectured at the
University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. His expertise is in critical theory and
the social philosophy of communication.
International experience, he said, is essential for the university, its
faculty and its students to understand the big picture. “Our faculty and
students aim also to connect with the world, as a cosmopolitan university
whose own locale must become increasingly fluent in the give and take of
international experience,” he said. “Experience with other cultures on their
turf is indispensable to that fluency.”
• Nancy Napier, executive director of the Global Business Consortium,
has taught or conducted research in Vietnam, Japan, Myanmar, Japan, Sweden,
Germany, Austria and Mexico. She has also traveled to England, China,
Ireland, Slovenia and the United Kingdom.
When teaching abroad, Napier said, it’s important to try to integrate local
views with North American perspectives in order to increase understanding
and further partnerships. In addition, her work in Vietnam reminded her that
as Westerners, we often forget that others have valuable knowledge and
experiences to share. “I realized how often the ‘learners’ can teach the
‘experts,’” she said. “The Vietnamese have knowledge and skills that were
useful to those of us who worked with them — from negotiation skills to
entrepreneurial attitudes to knowing how to deal gracefully with turmoil and
change.”
• Anthropologist John Ziker studies land and resource use,
demography, and cosmology among the Dolgan and Nganasan in the western
Taimyr region of Siberia. Specifically, his research examines the dynamics
of indigenous households and their relationship with the environment.
“Boise State is promoting internationalization, meant to educate competent
and culturally sensitive citizens as active participants in society,” he
said. “My travel to Siberia provides students an international and
cross-cultural perspective when pursuing degrees at Boise State. [In
addition] my research adds to understandings of cooperation, global
interdependence, human rights, and diverse cultural, social, political and
economic systems in the Arctic.”
* For answers to these questions, check with Gundars Kaupins (business
management), Jason Herbeck (modern languages and literatures), Helen Lojek
(English), Mark Plew (anthropology) and Steve Novak (biology).
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Media Contact: Kathleen Craven, University Relations, (208) 426-3275,
kcraven@boisestate.edu
To arrange to speak with any faculty member listed above, call Kathleen
Craven, or you may contact them directly at:
Jim Cook, (208) 426-1773,
jdcook@boisestate.edu
Jason Herbeck, (208) 426-3692,
jasonherbeck@boisestate.edu
Xabier Irujo, (208) 426-2595,
xabierirujo-amezaga@boisestate.edu
Gundars Kaupins, (280) 426-4014,
gkaupins@boisestate.edu
Helen Lojek, (208) 426-1328,
hlojek@boisestate.edu
Ed McLuskie, (208) 426-1927,
emclusk@boisestate.edu
Nancy Napier, (208) 426-1314,
nnapier@boisestate.edu
Steve Novak, (208) 426-3548,
snovak@boisestate.edu
Mark Plew, (208) 426-3444,
mplew@boisestate.edu
Greg Raymond, (208) 426-3607,
graymon@boisestate.edu
Todd Shallat, (208) 426-3701,
tshalla@boisestate.edu
John Ziker, (208) 426-2121,
jziker@boisestate.edu
Boise State University is the largest institution of higher education in
Idaho with about 18,600 students and 2,200 faculty and staff. More than 190
undergraduate, graduate, doctoral and technical degrees are offered within
eight colleges. A metropolitan university located in the capital city, Boise
State is committed to life-enhancing research, teaching excellence and
public service.
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Last reviewed on Wednesday, February 01, 2006