Note: This article first appeared in Around the O on Thursday, February 27, 2014.

What began with a visit from a dignitary at the UO has led to a lab named in the honor of a UO faculty member and administrator.

University of Oregon chemistry professor Ken Doxsee visited Thonburi, Thailand, in December to speak and perform experiments at the grand opening of a facility named in his honor – Assumption College’s Doxsee Green Chemistry Laboratory.

Doxsee started teaching at the UO in 1989 and also serves as UO associate vice provost for academic affairs.

Award-winning journalist and human rights advocate Lydia Cacho will visit the UO to deliver the 2014 Bartolomé de las Casas Lecture in Latin American Studies. Her talk, entitled "Defending Human Rights: The Amazing Journey of a Mexican Journalist," will take place on Thursday, May 29, at 182 Lillis Hall, 7 p.m.

Born in Cancún, Mexico, in 1963, Lydia Cacho is widely recognized as one of the most courageous journalists in the world for her reports on domestic violence, child prostitution, organized crime, and political corruption.

Note: This Article was first published by the Daily Emerald on Sunday, Febraury 2, 2014.

The large wooden doors swung open and she staggered inside, her feet touching the stone floor. A golden, candlelit hue enveloped her. She stood gaping in wonder as sparkles danced before her eyes. The house tables for Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff were set. Lifelike mannequins resembling professors Dumbledore, Hagrid and Snape were positioned on the podium in the front of the room.

Today, Friday, January 31 marks the end of the Chinese calendar. Around midnight, millions of people around the world will be celebrating Chinese New Year.

At the UO, a few student organizations will be sharing their cultural traditions and events with all UO community.

Check out the following links for a full list of events and schedules:

Vietnamese Student Association Tết Celebration
http://blogs.uoregon.edu/uovsa/

We are excited to announce that the application period for the 2014 Global Oregon Graduate and Undergraduate Grants is now open. These grants are intended to enhance students’ global education experiences, such as study abroad, international internships and international research opportunities. We invite UO graduate students to apply for one of five $2,000 research awards and UO undergraduate students to apply for one of ten $500 research awards.

Global Oregon is an initiative of the Global Studies Institute (gsi.uoregon.edu) in the UO Office of International Affairs.

Note: This articcle first appeared in the Emerald newspaper on Friday, January 17, 2014.

Halfway through his second year as University of Oregon president, Michael Gottfredson is still a mystery to many students. Here are five tidbits about the UO president that will leave you feeling like you’re on a first name basis:

The Office of International Affairs (OIA) has appointed former U.S. Ambassador to Gabon and to Sao Tome & Principe, Eric Benjaminson, as the first executive director of the Gabon Oregon Transnational Research Center on Environment and Development (GOC—Eugene, OR branch).  

Ambassador Benjaminson, originally from Brownsville, Oregon, and a UO alumnus (1981, History, Honors College), recently retired from a 32-year career with the US Foreign Service, having served in Europe, China, Canada, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Namibia, and Gabon.  

The Office of International Affairs (OIA) has appointed Professor Stephen Wooten as its new Associate Vice Provost and Director of Study Abroad.
 
Jointly appointed since 2001 to the Departments of International Studies and Anthropology, Wooten brings a wide range of prior research, administrative and programmatic experience to his new role in OIA.
 

A group of young UO journalists and their mentor Professor Carol Ann Bassett, from the UO School of Journalism and Communication, have generated buzz in local media and received a significant amount of social media kudos for their multimedia work documenting the migration of whales along the coast of Uruguay.

The project titled Route of the Whale is an interactive site that displays the route of different whale species along the coast of Uruguay and South America. The site features video footage, images and other content created by UO journalism students.

The Association of Pacific Rim Universities has announced the 7th APRU Undergraduate Summer Program (USP) to be hosted by Nanjing University in China from 6 to 13 July 2014.

The USP 2014 is a 1- week enriching program for outstanding APRU students from multidisciplinary fields.

Program Overview
With the theme, “Developing Asia-Pacific Global Leaders: China’s Perspectives”, the USP 2014 aims to: