Prime Minister Miro Cerar of the Republic of Slovenia met with University of Washington President Ana Mari Cauce at the University of Washington on December 4, 2015 to express interest in sustained collaboration between the UW and academic institutions in Slovenia.
Vice Provost for Global Affairs Jeffrey Riedinger and UW President Ana Mari Cauce in discussion with Prime Minister of the Republic of Slovenia Dr. Miro Cerar Photo: Piotr Horoszowski
The Slovene Prime Minister was accompanied by His Excellency Ambassador Božo Cerar, Slovene Ambassador to the U.S., Slovene Deputy Prime Minister Boris Koprivnikar, and other Slovene government officials. UW Vice Provost for Global Affairs Jeffrey Riedinger, Vice Provost for Digital Initiatives and Dean of Libraries Betsy Wilson, Divisional Dean for Humanities Michael Shapiro, Professor and Chair of Slavic Languages Katarzyna Dziwirek, Professor of Law Louis Wolcher, and Professor of Slavic Languages Michael Biggins also participated in the discussion.
Prime Minister Cerar praised the long-term impacts of the UW-University of Ljubljana Faculty Exchange, which has been in existence since 1979. He and President Cauce also discussed an initiative already underway at the UW to create an academic program in interdisciplinary Slovene studies, which would serve students at the UW and around the U.S. via distance learning.
UW graduate students working in Slovene studies, UW post-doctoral researchers from Slovenia, and two UW undergraduates recruited from Slovenia to compete as part of the UW men’s rowing team greeted the Slovene delegation at Gerberding Hall.
This was the first visit by a Slovene prime minister to the UW and took place as part of a larger Slovene trade delegation tour of five major U.S. IT hubs. Former Slovene Ambassador to the U.S. Samo Žbogar visited UW twice during his tenure, delivering a talk during a 2007 visit to a hundred students at the Jackson School of International Studies.
As climate negotiations continue in Paris, Old Weather, a citizen-science project led by a University of Washington scientist, is mining historic ships logs to get a unique peek at Arctic climate over the past two centuries.
In developing or war-ravaged countries where government censuses are few and far between, gathering data for public services or policymaking can be difficult, dangerous or near-impossible. Now, researchers with the University of Washington Information School and Computer Science and Engineering Department have devised a way to estimate the distribution of wealth and poverty in an area by studying metadata from calls and texts made on cell phones.
Join UW faculty on Tuesday, Nov. 24 for a roundtable discussion on “Paris II: Making Sense of the World” in Thomson Hall 101 at 7 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
Daniel Chirot, Herbert J. Ellison Professor of Russian and Eurasian Studies
Kathie Friedman, Associate Professor, Jackson School of International Studies
Ray Jonas, Colonel Donald W. Wiethuechter, USA Ret., Endowed Faculty Fellow in History
Reşat Kasaba, Stanley D. Golub Chair of International Studies; and Director, Jackson School of International Studies
Anand Yang, moderator; Chair, Department of History; and Tamaki Professor, International Studies
Presented by The Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, the Department of History, the Center for Global Studies, the Center for West European Studies, the European Union Center of Excellence, and the Middle East Center. The Middle East Center’s sponsorship of this event does not imply that the Center endorses its content.
You are invited to join us for a day-long dialogue on the current status and future of the Arctic Council including some of the founding voices in the Arctic Council and heads of the Permanent Participant organizations. Please join us for all or part of the day (see the program for presentation times). No registration necessary.
The Arctic Council at Twenty: Permanent Participants, Arctic Policy in Canada and the United States, and Stewardship
Friday, 20 November 2015, 8:30 a.m.- 4:30 p.m., Odegaard 220, University of Washington
The Arctic Council is the leading intergovernmental forum promoting cooperation, coordination and interaction among the Arctic states, Arctic Indigenous communities and other Arctic inhabitants on common Arctic issues. The Arctic Council is a unique international forum both historically and globally. It is the first international institution formed in dialogue with Indigenous peoples and the first where government and Indigenous organizations work on almost equal par to provide coordination for international decision making and activities in and concerning the circumpolar world. According the Griffith (2011) the Arctic Council was the result of a ground swell in civil society where scholars, practitioners and Indigenous leaders engaged in a dialogue concerning the need for an international coordinating body to address Arctic issues from a government and Indigenous perspective.
This workshop – supported by the Korea Maritime Institute, and hosted by the Canadian Studies Center/Arctic and International Relations in the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies – will reflect on the almost 20-year history of the Arctic Council, its influence on Arctic policy in North America, and future options concerning its role. Participants will present and discuss their reflections on the Arctic Council including its influence on Canadian and U.S. Arctic policy, and the role of four of the six Permanent Participant organizations who are represented in the Pacific Northwest.
This November 9 at 12:30pm, Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration Anne C. Richard will speak on campus about children of the current Syrian refugee crisis.
Roy Prosterman, professor emeritus of the University of Washington School of Law, founded Landesa, an international land reform agency a half-century ago. Today, Landesa was honored with a prestigious Hilton Humanitarian Prize. The prize comes with a $2 million cash award.
Prosterman is delighted that the award will help continue Landesa’s important work. “It will be extremely helpful and will lead, I’m sure, to a great deal of coverage of land and the land issue,” Prosterman said. “The award itself will be unrestricted and so it will allow us to work in places where it might otherwise take an extended period of time to get funding earmarked to do it.”
Every year, more than 30 UW Medicine residents journey 9,000 miles to Nairobi, Kenya. Working alongside Kenyan practitioners and students in conditions very different from those found in Seattle clinics and hospitals, they gain crucial skills and expand their clinical knowledge. They are part of CEPI, the Clinical Education Partnership initiative, an innovative global program improving healthcare in Kenya and the U.S.
A resident providing healthcare
A 25-year partnership between the University of Washington and University of Nairobi sparked this innovative initiative. CEPI connects medical residents across disciplines to create a teaching hospital. The UW is one of the first U.S. universities to maintain such a long-term relationship in Kenya, establishing capacity building and training for Kenyan and UW practitioners. “The problem with so much development work is that you just drop in, and that was great for a month or two months,” says Dr. Carey Farquhar, CEPI Director.
The Global Innovation Fund is helping to expand CEPI with a new partnership between the UW’s Schools of Nursing and Public Health, the University of Nairobi, and Naivasha District Hospital. The new initiative is led by Dr. Pamela Kohler, an assistant professor in nursing and public health. Her initiative is expanding CEPI to include nursing students and practitioners.
The team aims to partner UW nurses with graduate nursing students from a Kenyan university. UW students get multidisciplinary training, working with physicians and residents, and learn much from the Kenyan nurses. “In resource-limited settings [like Naivasha District Hospital], nurses are about 80 to 90 percent of the healthcare workforce,” says Kohler. “A nurse in a rural setting is going to do more than a nurse in a hospital where there are more physicians available. They see a lot and manage a lot.”
Naivasha District Hospital
To maintain continuity in the CEPI partnership at Naivasha District Hospital, CEPI and UW Medicine have taken the unusual step of posting a full-time chief resident at the hospital. The chief supervises medical residents who come for four weeks to teach and live in Kenya. With someone on-site year-round to strategically plan and evaluate, uninterrupted by constant shifts in personnel, the program makes a lasting impact, says Farquhar. The addition of nursing students – with the help of the Global Innovation Fund – will amplify the UW’s impact.
Dr. Kristen Hosey, a clinical assistant professor in psychosocial community health, led the first group of nursing students to Kenya in summer 2015 as part of a faculty-led Exploration Seminar. Six graduate-level registered nurses from UW Seattle and Tacoma gained first-hand experience in Kenya, working alongside nurses, midwives, physicians, clinical officers and community health workers from Naivasha. They also engaged in quality improvement projects, program evaluations and health education campaigns with their local partners to address health and capacity needs in Naivasha.
“What we’re trying to do, and where nursing fits in, is give our [residents and students] the opportunity to see a wide range of clinical activities, but also be sure they are doing something useful,” says Farquhar. “I always said I’d never create a program that’ s just a medical tourism program. [CEPI] residents are able to give a lot back.”
UW and Kenyan partners
The Global Innovation Fund supported a meeting between UW and Kenyan collaborators to work through complicated benefits and challenges related to this new, multidisciplinary global partnership. “It gives us the opportunity to bring everyone together in one room and think through issues with scope of practice and licensing, and what the role of the nurse looks like with a graduate student there,” says Kohler. The meeting builds on Farquhar and Hosey’s efforts, and aims to expand opportunities to University of Nairobi and Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture & Technology nursing students and practitioners to participate in future CEPI partnerships.
CEPI residents also make a financial investment in the program, which is financed through grants and departments, and by the residents themselves. The program provides secure housing, transportation and cell phones to participants, but flights and daily expenses are out of pocket costs. “I would love to have a grant from a donor so that we could fund this without having to transfer the costs,” says Farquhar.
Kohler, Farquhar and Hosey say their close and lasting relationships with Kenyan partners are central to the program’s success. “For me it’s the people,” says Farquhar. “[They] are really motivated. They are well trained, educated, intelligent, have good ideas and can work with you on these problems. You can see the fruits of your labor.” Together, the UW and Kenyan partners are driven to improve health outcomes and improve clinical education – in Kenya and the U.S.
Learn more about the Global Innovation Fund and other global opportunities.
— Indra Ekmanis and Sara Stubbs, Office of Global Affairs
