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National
Consortium for Teaching about Asia (NCTA)
As
the director of IU’s East
Asian Studies Center (EASC), I am engaged in
the work of National
Consortium for Teaching
about Asia (NCTA) in a number ways. IU’s
EASC is a founding member of
the National Consortium for Teaching
about Asia (NCTA), a
multi-year initiative funded by the Freeman
Foundation that facilitates
teaching and learning about Asia in middle
and high school world history,
geography, social studies, and
literature courses. Since its
inception in 1998, NCTA has provided
introductory Teaching about
Asia seminars for middle and high school
teachers in 46 states. IU’s
EASC has coordinated seminars in eight
states in the Midwest and the
South: Alabama, Indiana, Illinois,
Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan,
Minnesota, and Ohio. (More
information)
Apart from leading,
envisioning, and planning the
work and activities of NCTA with EASC
staff, I have been
periodically invited to give talks on the
orientations and seminars for
NCTA participants to share my research
and insights on Chinese
education and society. An example of the
PowerPoint Slides I have used
in one of the talks is available here.
Along these lines, my broader goal is to promote and increase global competence among teachers, and some related resources can be found here.
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Through collaborative research trips to China and
study tours to East Asia with IU students and K-12 educators, Heidi
Ross brings a deep knowledge of East Asia and a spirit of cooperative
learning to the classroom and the community.
--From
EASC website
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Global Indiana: A Consortium for
International Exchange
 Global
Indiana is a new avenue for Indiana
educators to access information
about the myriad opportunities
available for world travel, for global
education, and for partnerships with
schools abroad. The Indiana
Department of Education has teamed with
dedicated school leaders from
across the state for the purpose of
increasing participation in
international programs and activities.
Selected
as one of the first members of the
governing board for Global Indiana,
I have been a board
member for this State-wide
international educational exchange
organization since 2006. My
involvement with Global Indiana began
as a result of my roles as Director of
IU's East Asian Studies Center
and my international education faculty
responsibilities and activities
within the IU School of Education. By
training, passion, and
professional responsibility I support
all efforts that build stronger
and more humane bridges between the
U.S. and East Asia. As a
comparative and international educator
and scholar of contemporary
Chinese education, I strive through my
work to support the teaching of
East Asian languages and cultures at all
levels of schooling, and
Global Indiana offers an excellent
collaborative organization for that
purpose. The State of Indiana and the
Midwest region as a whole needs
strong, cross-sector organizations to
facilitate global education for
global citizenship-and Global Indiana
is growing into just that sort of
organization. I have been invited to
give talks on the topics of
Chinese education and society on a
number of Global Indiana
conventions. (An example of the
PowerPoint Slides I used for Global
Indiana talks is available here.)
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The Confucius
Institute in Indianapolis
 The
Confucius Institute in Indianapolis is an apolitical, non-profit
organization. It was established at IUPUI in 2007 to promote the
teaching of Chinese language and culture in central Indiana and
facilitate mutual understanding between the peoples of China and
United States. I have been serving as an advisory board member since the establishment of
the Confucius Institute in Indianapolis, advising on all matters related
to Confucius Institute, especially for Chinese language education and
cultural programs. I was also honored to give the keynote speech on “Seeking
Confucius in 21st Century Chinese Education” at its grand
opening ceremony.
Asia Learning Center of Indiana
The Asian Learning Center of Indiana endeavors to educate, connect and engage Hoosiers
about the history, cultures, and emerging business opportunities of Asia through public,
private, community and business partnership in Indiana. The Asian Learning Center of
Indiana works with community organizations, business and government entities, and
Indiana's public and private educational institutions to develop programs in three areas,
which are Education & Learning, Community Development, and Business & Economic Development.
I am the chair of the Education Advisory Committee.
- Asian Learning Center of Indiana Releases Survey Results:
Survey Shows Lack of Asian Studies
A survey from the Asian Studies Center of Indiana finds the majority of state school systems
lack the resources to provide Asian studies and language programs. The research also shows
89 percent of responding schools say they would implement programs if the proper tools were
provided. Read More
National Committee on United States-China Relations
I am a member of the National Committee on
United States-China
Relations, which is an organization that has worked at the forefront
of the dynamic and expanding Sino-American relationship, helping
to shape American foreign policy toward China into one that is in
the best long-term interest of this country. The Committee also educates Americans
and Chinese about the realities of each others' countries, promotes the
principles of education, not advocacy, represents the diverse views and
facets of American society, and reaches out to government officials,
opinion makers and the general public.
The 1990
Institute
Serving as education advisor/monitor for Chinese
secondary schooling, my primary role with the 1990 Institute is
to advise the NGO on "Dragon Fund" Shaanxi Project Girls' Educational
Access Project, and to monitor students’ experiences. (For more
information, please see the report “Keeping the Promise: Findings from The 1990 Institute
Spring Bud Project”.)
Along
with my multifold involvement with the
work of The 1990 Institute,
especially with the Spring Bud project,
several research projects have
been established to investigate how
access to schooling changed a
girl’s expectations and aspirations for
the future, and how this school
experience changed parents’ view of what
girls could do and their value
in the household. Over the past decade,
this longitudinal field
project has gone through four stages,
and please refer to the Research
section for more information.
Another
related research project
began in 2005 with a “Pathways to
Peace” initiative funded by the
Indiana University School of Education
was designed as a cross-cultural
learning exercise for Chinese and
American students and teachers.
Participating Chinese students were
Spring Bud (SB) girls from Xihe
Middle School in Shangluo. Participating
American students were from
Bloomington, Indiana. We provided 27
students with cameras and asked
them to take pictures of their lives at
home, at school and in society.
These photographs, and bilingual
transcriptions of discussions about
their meaning, were exchanged between
schools so that students and
teachers might gain a deeper
appreciation for what growing up might be
like in each others’ countries. The
students’ remarkable pictures
capture the joys and the social,
economic, and psychological challenges
confronting children in the 21st
century. (Please click here
for more information.)
My
long-term involvement and
research with The 1990 Institute and
Spring Bud girls has also led to
other related research and advocacy
projects. For example, in the fall
2008, I traveled to the San Francisco
area to fundraise for the
construction costs of a prototype
environmentally friendly village
primary school in Shaanxi Province that
can withstand a magnitude eight
earthquake. Shaanxi is right next door
to Sichuan Province – the
province where an earthquake in 2008
killed 10,000 school children.
Twenty-two percent of Shaanxi’s primary
schools were destroyed or
eventually demolished because of the
damage. My most recent visit to
Shaanxi for the high school graduation
ceremony for Spring Bud girls
also allowed me to participate in the
on-site discussions on the
building and maintenance of a “green”
campus housing a magnet school to
replace two condemned elementary
schools. For more information about
this ongoing Green School Construction
Project under the 1990
Institute, please click here.
My Involvement with Cultural Immersion Projects
 With
School of Education colleague Laura Stachowski and support from the
East Asian Studies Center, I have helped to establish a placement site
in China’s Shandong Province for Teacher Education majors through IU’s
Cultural Immersion Projects program in 2006. I facilitated the
placement and arrangements of this first China site for the program, and
sought additional financial support from EASC through its Freeman
Foundation funds. Although designed primarily for teacher education
majors, the Cultural Immersion Projects’ international placements are
also open to non-education majors interested in seeking “school
internships” abroad and to education majors from other IU campuses and
other Indiana public institutions, such as Purdue and Ball State
Universities.
Five years after the establishment of this China site in Shandong Province,
we kept hearing about inspiring experiences from the projects’
participants, and the following is an excerpt from one of the
emails/messages we received from student participants of the Cultural
Immersion Projects--
"My experience in China was one of the
best, if not the best, experiences I have ever had. I want to thank you
for putting this program together and giving me the opportunity to
participate in it. Without this program I never would have realized how
much I could enjoy a culture that was so different from my own. It has
had such a profound impact on me that I am currently in talks with a
private school system in China, English First, and I hope to be
returning to teach somewhere in China for at least a year this coming
fall…Along with realizing that I would like to teach in China I have
also come to the realization that I would love to help others do this
as well. … I want to be able to help other students have the same eye
opening experiences that I had so they can understand the world around
them.” (Braden Cundiff, June 1, 2010.)
In the year 2011, Cultural Immersion Projects won an international Innovation Award from the University Design Consortium, an organization founded to challenge public universities around the world to develop innovative strategies to address complex 21st century issues. [IU News Release]
Supporting the
Teaching and Learning of Chinese at IU and
Beyond
----Professor Heidi Ross
Indiana University’s Graduate Quarterly.
Volume 4, 2008 |
By training, passion, and professional responsibility, I
support all efforts that build
stronger and more humane bridges
between the U.S. and East Asia,
through teaching, research and language
learning. One of these
efforts includes facilitating IU’s School
of Education to offer three routes
to Chinese language teaching
certification -- through the
"Transition to Teaching" program, the
secondary graduate certification
program, and "Community of Teachers." |
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News
Need for Chinese
language teachers growing, IU
responding.
The School of Education
offers
three routes to Chinese
language teaching certification -- through the
"Transition to Teaching"
program, the secondary graduate
certification program, and
"Community of Teachers."
"We want to help Indiana
build a
pipeline for Chinese language
expertise," said Heidi Ross, professor
of educational policy studies
in the School of Education and director
of the East Asian Studies
Center.
Ross said the pipeline is
coming together in the state
through more primary and secondary
schools offering instruction
and the continuing development of
partnerships at IU.
"With strong East Asian
languages and culture
programs, we have the ability to teach upper
level language courses and
culture classes -- all the knowledge that a
teacher would need in order to
step into the classroom," Ross said. "We
also have the ability to
send students to East Asia on study abroad
programs."
More... |
More related resource: The Asia Society Confucius Classrooms Network |
Supporting Student Organizations and Philanthropic Activities
I have been enthusiastic in supporting and advising IU student organizations, especially those related to education, cultural exchange and volunteer work in Asia. For example, I am serving as the faculty advisor of the Dream Corps International Indiana University Chapter, which works towards the mission of promoting education equity in China through quality resources and sustained participation.
Another volunteer program I have been interested in is called Volunteers in Asia (VIA), a U.S.-based nonprofit organization offering practical, on-the-ground experience in Asia for Americans. For college graduates and others who seek practical work experience in Asia, VIA places volunteers with partner NGOs, schools and universities in Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, or Vietnam.
“Education in Afghanistan: IU and 'Three Cups of Tea'” is another philanthropic and advocacy-oriented activity that I have supported through my role of co-director of ANU-IU Pan Asia Institute. Greg Mortenson, philanthropist and author of Three Cups of Tea and Stones into Schools, came to Indianapolis for a day of public speaking engagements on September 27,  2010 with partial support provided by the Pan Asia Institute (PAI). Partnering with the IU School of Education and Vision and Voices: Islam and Muslims in Global Perspectives, we organized a public forum around an evening lecture which began with a live webstream of Mortenson’s remarks at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church in Indianapolis. Following the formal presentation, School of Education professors Mitzi Lewison and Terry Mason reviewed their work with the USAID-funded Afghanistan Higher Education project and facilitated discussions on educational development and international outreach. Approximately 90 students, faculty, staff, donors, and community members attended the evening program. [IU News Release]
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