Community Based Teaching & Learning Workshop
A 4-day workshop located in Portland, Oregon, USA. CPS is going to host the Community Based Teaching & Learning Workshop for Japanese professionals this coming October.
Since 2013, the Japanese Ministry of Education (MEXT) is providing funding and incentives to the Japanese universities that are focusing on the Community Based Learning (CBL) approaches. MEXT sees the higher education institutes can contribute even more to solve various issues in society and regional communities through extension courses based on each university's education and research. Developing universities as center of regional regeneration and revitalization by encouraging universities to collaborate with municipalities, local community members, NPOs, and so forth, many communities can resolve various issues directly facing them.
Because PSU has been practicing CBL teaching methods and approaches for the last 20 years and ranks within the top universities in the United States, CPS took this opportunity to share the knowledge and teaching methods especially with the Japanese universities. Also, CPS has many bilingual faculty and staff who can provide these kinds of workshops in different languages, CPS put together an interdisciplinary team to deliver the workshop.
Find out more about CBL (Japanese).
Supreme Court of Japan
The Fourth Judicial District Trial Court Administrator, Ms. Barbara Marcille and her predecessor, Mr. Douglas Bray, have been the champions of this partnership with the Supreme Court of Japan. Before CPS became involved in this partnership, Mr. Bray has welcomed research scholars from the Supreme Court of Japan for over 20 years. Beginning 2015, CPS provides an academic home and advising to one member of the Japanese court staff who is selected each year to conduct research in Oregon, and the Fourth Judicial District acts as field advisor and provides the real-world cases for the research scholar to study and explore. Historically, CPS’ efforts have been focused on either administrative/executive or legislative areas, making this new partnership with the Supreme Court among CPS’ first experiences coordinating with the judicial branch. This new relationship offered CPS the opportunity to share its unique approach to public service while being enriched by the court officials’ insights, and Oregon is honored to be the only state to which the Japanese Supreme Court sends its research scholars on an annual basis.
Find out more about Supreme Court of Japan.
Hiroshima Shudo University, Glocal Innovation Program
The “Glocal Project” is designed as part of the curriculum for the Department of International Politics and Department of Regional Administration at Hiroshima Shudo University in Japan, which focuses on the discovery and development of new and better ways of using locally available resources in urban and suburban areas of Hiroshima. 10 selected students from the course are expected to gain practical knowledge and concepts from advanced examples of local innovation projects from Portland and to apply applicable experience and innovative ideas back home.
2017 Glocal Innovation Program in Portland pictures
The Initiative for Community and Disaster Resilience (ICDR) is an interdisciplinary institute whose focus is on research, educational outreach and community enlightenment. This initiative, created with the collaboration of the Center for Public Service and the Economics Department, aims to serve as an intellectual hub for students, scholars and practitioners to work on issues related to emergency management and preparedness and community resilience from natural disasters.
While many academic and policy research centers for emergency management exist in the U.S., they primarily focus on the ‘hard science’ aspect of natural disasters. In contrast, the ICDR is designed to approach natural disaster- related issues from “soft” social science and policy perspectives.
Currently, the events under ICDR are related to Japan though it will eventually extend to other countries as well.