National University of Singapore

Builders Connect (BC) Learning Programme 2011

Involving a quintessential learning trip to the Philippines, Builders Connect is a development-work interest group begun just a year ago and began with the purpose of radically changing the way we approach helping others through community service. Primarily, it is built on the philosophy that meaningful development or community service requires an understanding of the complexities and interdisciplinary nature of the developing world. Builders Connect aims to be a platform for meaningful community service by firstly, equipping students with an introduction to these complexities and secondly, bringing like-minded people together to embark on projects that will be meaningful and effective. These will both be done through a learning trip in May (tentatively 12-26th May), which focuses on building upon the individual backgrounds and passions of its participants, in order to gain multidisciplinary insights into the complex challenges of poverty alleviation, talent synergy, social entrepreneurship, global hunger, child education and environmental sustainability.

Washington:
Feb 16-25

Singapore:
May 22-31

George Washington University (GWU)-USP Twin-City Dialogue Series 2011

USP is pleased to once again bring you the George Washington University (GWU)–USP Twin-City Dialogue Series 2011. In this International Programme, a small group of you will spend this semester collaborating with students and faculty at GWU on a comparative study of Singapore and Washington, DC on this year’s topic, “Tourism, National Image and Identity”. Dr Lo Mun Hou will be leading this year’s delegation.

Tourism is one of the ways a country, state, or community projects an image to the world, and thus imagines itself. Regardless of whether this image is, or starts out as, “true,” it can become part of the country’s identity. How does this happen? And what room is there in the process for contestations and resistance? Singapore and Washington, DC are interesting case studies of this process of image- and identity-making. While Singapore has long been able to centralize and control the process by which it represents itself to the world, recent tourist sites—such as the Esplanade, or the Integrated Resorts—seem more rife with fissures. Meanwhile, Washington, DC has a unique status in America: though a city (and thus involved in its own process of image-making), it is of course also the capital and seat of the federal government, and thus often bears the conflicting burden of representing all of the United States.

GWU-NUS Twin City Dialogue Series 2011 student website
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Tufts University EPIIC International Symposium 2011

We are pleased to once again bring you the opportunity to be part of the EPIIC (Education for Public Inquiry and International Citizenship) International Symposium organised by Tufts University’s Institute of Global Leadership in Boston USA.  This international symposium is an annual four-to-five-day public forum featuring scores of international practitioners, activists, academics, public intellectuals, and journalists. EPIIC's symposia -- consisting of presentations, panel discussions, topical forums, informal gatherings, multimedia and dramatic presentations, and workshops -- are intellectually wide-ranging and accessible. USP has been an invited partner of IGL for this symposium since 2008.