With the wide range of opportunities for funding, and a focus on higher educational linkages and collaborations in Korea and Taiwan, UNT is poised to facilitate faculty interest in the region; to this end UNT International created “Task Force - Korea and Taiwan” a University round-table presentation and workshop focusing on academic or other research interests in Korea and Taiwan.  This workshop was an opportunity for faculty to share their research ideas and initiatives with each other in an open forum, and explore the availability of funding for these projects from outside sources.This was the second in a series of such events; each will focus on different geographic regions of the world, the next being India. These groups will continue to meet ensuring alignment of University initiatives throughout the world while exploring opportunities for collaboration, discussing the University’s priorities in the region and how projects align with institutional goals.

Proposals

• Dr. Ted Farris, College of Business, Fulbright Scholar
• Dr. Joan Hubbard, College of Business, Department of Management, International Visiting Scholars Program National Taiwain Normal University
• Dr. George Morrison, College of Educaiton, Professor, Early Childhood Education

Available funding from the Taiwanese Government:

• An introduction to The Taiwan Scholarship Program
• Department of English Language and Literature of Soochow University
• Introduction to the Ministry of Education Huayu Enrichment Scholarship (HES)
• Mandarin Chinese Study Tour Scholarship

Summary

Dr. Earl Gibbons, Vice Provost and Associate Vice President for International Education, opened the meeting explaining the importance of internationalization, and collaboration to the future growth of UNT. He then reinforced the significance of collaborative opportunities, like Task Force Korea and Taiwan, to the support of the strategic vision of the university. He noted that the sheer amount of people that attend this task force speaks volumes about UNT’s commitment to internationalization.

Dr. Ted Farris spoke about the development and expansion of Fulbright scholarships at UNT focusing on the region.  He described the Churn scholarship, a chance for UNT to bring up to five scholars to the US, and a way to reinvigerate UNT’s interest in Fulbright programs. He later introduced the idea of joint projects with Korean or Taiwanese and UNT students as part of an academic course.

Dr. Joan Hubbard discussed her involvment with the international visiting scholars program at National Taiwain Normal University. She will be holdng two lectures in Taiwan this year, and plans on increasing this initiative in the future.

Dr. George Morrison has lectured in Taiwan about childhood education and shared with the group that the entrepenural spirit in Taiwan is alive and well. He plans on recruiting more Taiwanese doctoral students and increasing the frequency of the lecture tour.

Dr. Judith Forney, Dean of UNT’s School of Merchandising and Hospitality Management, revealed a new focus in the school of merchandising and hospitality management is the fashion industry in Korea. She spoke about a “hole in Souel, that if someone steps into it they pop out in Chilton Hall” suggesting that the School of Merchandising and Hospitality Management has a strong existing relationship with Korea.

Dr. Chang Koh, of the College of Business, introduced the idea of a storm of intellectual globalization and the World Class University project. He discussed that UNT is overly undervalued in the world market, and discussed that the way to fix this is personal relationships.

Harold Strong, director of UNT’s Discovery Park, discussed the importance of even small entrepenural businesses of Asia to UNT and the US.

Dr. Rick Nader, Director of Research Development for UNT’s Office of Research and Economic Development, spoke briefly about funding opportunities from the National Science Foundation, Graduate Fellow programs because the funding of research is on the rise.

Dr. Earl Gibbons then concluded the meeting with stating that the United Staes is ranked last in internationalization of higher education out of international higher educational nations. On a lighter note UNT is leading the battle to chage this as UNT is an emerging research university and is expanding the internaitonal focus.

Task Force Korea and Taiwan Meeting 2-5-09 Attendance