IUPUI

International News at IUPUI

IUPUI Campus Recognized at Chancellor's Honors Convocation for Prestigious Heiskell International Education Award for International Partnerships

April 17, 2009

The IUPUI Chancellor's Academic Honors Convocation today acknowledged the entire campus with the Prestigious External Award Recognition (PEAR) for receiving the Andrew Heiskell Award for International Partnerships. IUPUI Associate Vice Chancellor/IU Associate Vice President Susan Buck Sutton accepted the Heiskell at the United Nations on March 19 of this year.

Ian McIntosh and Susan Buck Sutton

From the program:

The Institute of International Education (IIE) awarded the Andrew Heiskell Award for International Partnerships to IUPUI. The prestigious Heiskell Awards were established by IIE to recognize and promote outstanding international higher education initiatives among its member colleges and universities. The goals of IIE's Heiskell Awards are to foster innovative ideas that will help international education professionals create and sustain new opportunities for students and faculty; to bring international education to the forefront of education policy; and to stimulate public awareness of the benefits of study abroad and international educational exchange.

IUPUI embarked on an innovative, campus-wide program that placed a select and strategic set of partnerships at the heart of its internationalization efforts four years ago. The strategic set of partnerships are Moi University in Eldoret, Kenya; Sun Yat Sen University in Guangzhou, China, and the Autonomous University of the State of Hidalgo in Pachuca, Mexico.

Susan B. Sutton, Associate Vice Chancellor of International Affairs at IUPUI, IU Associate Vice President, and Chancellor's Professor of Anthropology, and Ian McIntosh, IUPUI Director of International Partnerships and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Anthropology, have played an instrumental role in fostering these partnerships from the beginning and continue to do so.

IUPUI Headlines in Hiroshima!

 

February 24, 2009

The very first video-conference linking a Japanese atomic bomb survivor in Hiroshima, Japan, to the outside world was successfully completed last night in IUPUI’s Global Crossroads lab.

Mr. Takashi Teramoto was just 10 years old when the nuclear weapon nicknamed ‘little boy’ was dropped on Hiroshima by the US military on August 6, 1945, killing an estimated 140,000 people.

A greater-than-capacity audience of high school students, IUPUI faculty, staff and students, and members of the broader Indianapolis community, listened intently as Mr. Teramoto graphically—but without excessive emotion—described the tragic events of that day and the painful years that followed.  He ended with a heartfelt and personal plea for peace and a world free of nuclear weapons.

The large audience was very appreciative of the way that Mr. Taramoto responded to very difficult questions of guilt, victimhood, and suffering. One IUPUI student remarked, "My views on nuclear weapons have changed because of Takashi Teramoto's testimony."

The video-connection, an initiative of the Hiroshima Peace Museum in Japan, was spearheaded at IUPUI by Dr. Izumi Harris, an anthropologist formerly of the University of Hiroshima, Dr. Bob Harris of the IUPUI Center for Economic Education, and Dr. Ian McIntosh of the IUPUI Office of International Affairs.

Mr. Teramoto’s presentation received maximum news coverage in Hiroshima. Every local news media group in the city was present for the duration of the event. Many media reports are already in circulation and photos of the event have appeared on numerous Japanese news media websites, including:

http://www.chugoku-np.co.jp/News/Tn200902250022.html

According to Hiroshima’s Chugoku Shinbun newspaper, "It has been difficult for survivors to testify on site in the U.S. because of the physical stress involved.  Mr. Teramoto commented, however, that he felt that he could testify to the [virtual] audience just as if he were giving a talk in person in the U.S."

The live-link was preceded by a panel discussion on what is (or should be) the legacy of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended the war in the Pacific in 1945. Panelists included anthropologist Ian McIntosh, IUPUI Director of International Partnerships, IUPUI Liberal Arts Dean Bill Blomquist, IUPUI economist Mark Bilodeau, and historian James Madison from IU-Bloomington.

The video-connection complements the Hiroshima/Nagasaki photo exhibit entitled “Is a world free from nuclear weapons possible?” which is being held until March 20 at the Cultural Arts Gallery at the IUPUI Campus Center.

For more information on these events, please contact Izumi Harris at itharris@iupui.edu or Ian McIntosh at imcintos@iupui.edu