Three additional schools are being recognized with the 2010 Senator Paul Simon Spotlight Award for a specific international program or initiative on campus. They are the Borough of Manhattan Community College in New York, La Roche College in Pennsylvania, and the College of the Atlantic in Maine.

Named for the late Senator Paul Simon, (D–Ill.), these awards recognize outstanding and innovative efforts in campus internationalization. Sen. Simon was well known as a strong supporter of international education and foreign language learning. His leadership in these areas was especially evident in his robust support for the creation of the National Security Education Program, which addresses critical national security deficiencies in language and cultural expertise, and in his vision of a national program to greatly expand Americans’ knowledge of the world, which was the inspiration behind the Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Foundation Act.

The Simon Act, which has already been passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, is currently awaiting action in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The bill has strong bipartisan support in Congress, and carries the endorsement of nearly fifty higher education and international education organizations.

Each of the institutions selected for internationalization awards this year will be featured in NAFSA’s report Internationalizing the Campus: Profiles of Success at Colleges and Universities, to be published this fall. This annual report recognizes institutions that are leaders in the growing effort across higher education to better prepare students for a global economy and an interconnected world. The awardees will also be recognized on June 4, 2010 at the International Plenary and Luncheon during NAFSA’s 2010 Annual Conference & Expo in Kansas City, MO.

The NAFSA selection jury included Ron Roberson (jury chair; Howard Community College), Mary Devins (Connecticut College), Jeff Riedinger (Michigan State University), Neal Sobania (Pacific Lutheran University), and Priscilla Stone (Washington University in St. Louis).

For more information, visit www.nafsa.org/SimonAward.

(republished with the kind permission of NAFSA)

Widely considered one of the most talented and controversial fiction writers of our time, Rushdie is known for creating captivating stories that challenge official historical, political, and religious doctrine. He first earned widespread acclaim with his second novel, Midnight’s Children, which won the Booker Prize in 1981 and, later, the Best of the Booker award. Among his other fictional works are The Moor’s Last Sigh and The Ground Beneath Her Feet.  He has authored a collection of essays titled Step Across the Line, and his nonfiction works include The Wizard of Oz and The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey. His most recent work, The Enchantress of Florence, was published last year. Rushdie has won many of the world’s top literary prizes and received a British Knighthood for “services to literature.” He served as president of The PEN American Center, the world’s oldest human rights organization, from 2004 to 2006.

The publication in 1988 of Rushdie’s fourth novel, The Satanic Verses, set off an immediate controversy. Rushdie spent nearly a decade of his career under police protection after Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa against him for his allegedly blasphemous portrayal of Islam in the book. Now the Distinguished Writer in Residence at Emory University in Atlanta, Rushdie was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in May 2008. He is an outspoken advocate for human rights and artistic freedom.

Learn more about Salman Rushdie and the rest of NAFSA’s conference plenary lineup over the coming months at www.nafsa.org/conference and on the NAFSA blog.  NAFSA’s Annual Conference & Expo attracts more than 7,000 international education professionals from more than 120 countries each year and is the world’s premier international education event.

i-studentadvisor (ISA Media) will be attending the Kansas City conference, so keep an eye on this blog for further news updates.

The Universities Fighting World Hunger (UFWH) e-brochure is now available online at www.i-studentadvisor.com/ufwh. The brochure was designed and created by ISA Media after UFWH won a free e-brochure competition at the 2009 NAFSA Annual Conference and Expo.

ISA Media — the company responsible for i-studentadvisor, i-studentlife, i-studentenquiry and a range of interactive e-brochures for higher education institutions — launched a competition at this years NAFSA conferences in Los Angeles for one institution or organisation to win a four page electronic brochure.  Competition entrants were asked to hand in business cards at the ISA Media booth to be entered into the prize draw which was drawn on the final day of the conference.

The lucky winners were Universities Fighting World Hunger (UFWH), an organisation devoted to fighting world hunger with the help of donations and support of universities. UFWH began in 2004 as a partnership between the United Nations World Food Programme and Auburn University. Since then, more than 100 colleges and universities worldwide have joined in their efforts to eliminate hunger locally and globally. View the e-brochure for more information on UFWH or visit the website.

The runner-up prize of a 21-year-old bottle of whiskey went to John McPartland, Director of International Affairs at Trinity College Dublin.

ISA Media will be holding more booth competitions at the 2010 NAFSA conference in Kansa City, Missouri. For a chance of winning stop by the booth. Keep checking the i-studentadvisor blog for updates on both the NAFSA conference and other events that ISA Media will be attending.

Kristof has dedicated himself throughout his career to shedding light on some of the most profound humanitarian crises of our time, writing movingly and with personal conviction about poverty, injustice, and violence. This will be a very unique opportunity for international educators to hear from an extraordinary thought leader and human rights activist.

Last month, Kristof and his wife, former New York Times writer Sheryl WuDunn, published a book about what they have called “the cause of our century.” Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide has been hailed as a moving and action-inspiring account of the plight of women in many parts of the world. Kristof and WuDunn make a compelling case for not only the human rights imperative of fighting for women’s rights and education, but also for the enormous economic and social benefits that accrue to countries when women are empowered, able to support their families, and assume leadership roles in their families and communities. “The world is awakening to a powerful truth: Women and girls aren’t the problem; they’re the solution,” the authors write.

Kristof has been a columnist at the New York Times since 2001. He joined the paper in 1984 and has held several key positions over the years. He is also an avid participant in online journalism and social media and was the first blogger on the Times Web site.

In 2006, Kristof created a contest that caught the eye of the international education community. Called “Win a Trip with Nicholas Kristof,” it invited American college students to submit essays describing why they should be selected for an opportunity to travel with Kristof on a reporting trip to Africa. Describing in a column the value of such an opportunity, Kristof speaks directly to today’s college students, writing: “One of the failures of the American education system is that it rarely exposes students to life around the world…Let’s hope that Barack Obama’s presidency makes public service more appealing. But if you want to save the world, you first must understand it. So, embed yourself deep within a developing country for a summer or a year. I wish colleges would offer credit for such gritty experiences — and extra credit for getting intestinal worms.”

Learn more about Nicholas Kristof and the rest of NAFSA’s conference plenary lineup over the coming weeks and months at www.nafsa.org/conference and on the NAFSA blog.