Faculty perspectives on International education

Professor Richard Nastasi, Professor Sergio Inestrosa & Dr Aron Viner (Endicott College, Beverly, Massachusetts, USA)

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Abstract

Three staff members from Endicott College were in Melbourne to conduct an oratory tour with 9 of their students. They conducted a debate with a team of MIC students. In addition, they were asked to conduct a "staff symposium". Each one of the Endicott faculty spoke to a different international issue and gratefully engaged in dialogue with CQU/CMS faculty, staff and students.

Biographical Information

Sergio Inestrosareceived his PhD in Literature from the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City, in 1998. He was a Jesuit student for 8 years in Central America, living in El Salvador, Panama and Nicaragua. While in El Salvador he studied with Ignacio Ellacuria, a well known Jesuit scholar who was killed in 1988 by the military. When Sergio returned to Mexico, he studied to receive a Masters in Communication and became a professor and researcher in the Communication field. He has presented many research papers in Mexico, Latin America, USA and Asia, and has published 6 books in Mexico. In 1999 he taught Spanish at the Estrella Mountain College in Avondale, Arizona, and in 2000 he conducted Postdoctoral research at Harvard, focusing on the works of Octavio Paz. Since coming to Endicott, Sergio has been teaching Spanish and Mexican Culture and has been busy organizing a Spanish Cine Club on campus. He has also developed the Spanish minor and designed many new courses, including Spanish for Professionals, Spanish Cinema, Spanish Translation, Spanish Composition, Latin American History and Culture, and a Latin American literature course.

Aron Viner (Professor of Business) received his Ph.D. from the London School of Economics and Political Science. As a graduate student in economic anthropology, he conducted two years of fieldwork among former tribal cannibals, the Pakpak of North Sumatra, and among Malay fishermen in Eastern Malaysia. After receiving his PhD, Aron worked in Southeast Asian development economics, followed by postdoctoral research and study at Harvard University. After teaching for several years at the University of South Florida, he moved to Tokyo where he worked as an economist and international marketing strategist for a major securities firm. He later established a consulting firm in Cambridge Massachusetts, serving corporate clients in Japan, Korea and Southeast Asia. Aron consults on problems of change management, global marketing strategy and international mergers and acquisitions. His book, Inside Japanese Financial Markets, published by The Economist (and by Dow Jones-Irwin in the United States) was named one of the ten best business books of the year by the Best of Business Quarterly. He is the author of several other books and dozens of articles concerning Japanese finance, corp. governance and international affairs in East Asia and the USA. His broad cross-disciplinary and international experience, enable Aron to teach a variety of business courses at both the grad and undergrad level where the emphasis is on integrating and applying a multi-functional perspective as a global manager.

Rich Nastasi (Head Academic Advisor: Endicott Oratory Society) received his doctoral degree from the Dept of Curriculum and Teaching at Boston University. He has served as an assistant professor in Human Movement and Sport Sciences at the University of Ballarat in Victoria and as a lecturer in Curriculum and Teaching at Boston University. His academic interests include: the integration of sport, literature and philosophy into a viable and empowering academic framework, the development and nurturing of a humanistic model for managers and administrators in sporting situations, and the development and nurturing of an inductive, compassion-based model for wellness education. Rich has published scholarly articles and commentary in refereed and non-refereed journals, co-edited international conferences' proceedings and is currently co-authoring a book on the role of compassion in wellness education. He has presented papers at regional and national conferences as well as international presentations in England, Germany and Israel. Rich has given plenary addresses on Character Education and Sport (Australia) and on Scholarship Reconsidered: A Sport Research Perspective (Lisbon). Rich was an athletic director, coach and high school teacher in previous lives.

Date of Presentation

8 June 2007