LAWRENCE, KS, January 9-11, 2012 - Forty-two university faculty from fourteen countries in Eurasia and Southeastern Europe met with their U.S. colleagues at the University of Kansas (KU) to mark the beginning of the 2012 Junior Faculty Development Program (JFDP). Hosted by KU's Office of International Programs, the orientation familiarized the JFDP fellows with U.S. higher education and American culture, in preparation for spending a semester at a U.S. university.
In December 2011, four alumni of the Future Leaders Exchange (FLEX) program, administered by American Councils for International Education, brought young orphans and elderly people together in an act of American-style volunteerism. For three days, the alumni met with developmentally disabled orphans from Moscow's Boarding School No. 8 to make small gifts and practice songs, which they then presented to residents of an elderly care home. By organizing more than 500 volunteer events in 2011 alone, FLEX program alumni are changing the perception that community-based volunteerism is rare in Russia. The Moscow Times highlighted this volunteer project as a part of a news series on the FLEX program.
From January 9 to 14, 2012, senior university leaders from the U.S. and Russia convened at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), for the Enhancing University Research and Entrepreneurial Capacity (EURECA) program's annual conference, which focused on building university-industry relations. Following welcome remarks by UCLA Chancellor Gene Block and project sponsors and organizers, U.S. and Russian university partners discussed the results of the first year of the EURECA pilot program and their plans for project development in 2012.