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In a ceremony held last night on Stanford campus, 91�Թ� Director received the 2015 in recognition of his leadership and service in the field of education.

“This year, we cannot be more honored to recognize Dr. Gary Mukai for his tireless and selfless work in advancing educational equity and increasing cultural competency in classroom curriculum and instruction,” remarked Van Anh Tran, Board Member of the Stanford Asian Pacific American Alumni Club (). “Gary pushes the boundaries of education and culturally competent K–14 curriculum.”

SAPAAC presents the Alumni Award annually to a distinguished Stanford alumnus who has made exceptional contributions to the Stanford community and broader community in service, leadership, or financial contribution. Past recipients of the award have included distinguished Stanford alumni from throughout the decades, comprising activists, philanthropists, artists, civil rights lawyers, businesspeople, a mayor, a California Supreme Court justice, and other luminaries.

“I feel so undeserving of this award,” reflected Mukai. “I am very humbled.”

That humility belies Mukai’s fierce commitment—and tremendous contributions—to the fields of international and cross-cultural education. Since joining 91�Թ� in 1988, Mukai has workshopped with thousands of K–12 teachers, locally and internationally, on culturally sensitive pedagogical training and curriculum resources. He has provided immersive enrichment opportunities to hundreds of teachers through 91�Թ�’s free multicultural professional development seminars. And he has established an intensive series of free online international relations courses for high school students—the first of its kind.

Despite these contributions, Mukai is perhaps best known for his work in curriculum development. Throughout his tenure at 91�Թ�, Gary has overseen the development of well over 100 curriculum units on themes as diverse as , , and . These cross-cultural materials have touched countless students over the past 27 years, both within the United States and abroad.

Mukai’s strong dedication to this work has inspired others to take up the banner of international and cross-cultural education as well. Victoria Yee was one. As a Stanford undergraduate, she worked under Mukai’s supervision to develop . It was her first exposure to the field of education, and her first glimpse of what life as an educator might be like.

“I had little training in curriculum design or pedagogy. However, Gary was incredibly nurturing, patient, and supportive through every proposal, revision meeting, and draft,” says Yee. “Through his mentorship, my confidence in navigating the education realm…dramatically improved, [as well as] my conviction in institutionalizing diverse global curriculum at schools and my ability to make a difference in education.” Today she is a U.S. Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in rural Taiwan, and she credits her path largely to Mukai’s tutelage and encouragement.

“He is truly an invaluable asset to Stanford and beyond.”

For his part, Mukai prefers to downplay the praise with humor. After formally accepting the Alumni Award at last night’s ceremony, he stepped to the podium and thanked the award’s presenters and his family for their unwavering support. “I am very touched,” he continued, “that many 91�Թ� staff (past and present)—as well as some of my friends—chose to come to see me instead of watch the top American Idol finalists this evening.” 

Established in 1995 by the Association for Asian Studies, the Franklin Buchanan Prize is awarded annually to recognize an outstanding curriculum publication on Asia designed for any educational level, elementary through university. 

91�Թ� Curriculum Specialist and independent filmmaker Risa Morimoto have won the 2015 Buchanan Prize for their work on —a multimedia curriculum project that features documentary films, primary source readings, student handouts, and a full menu of classroom activities. All materials are available for free on the 91�Թ� website, .

Sekiguchi formally accepted the award at the 2015 Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference in Chicago. Before presenting the Buchanan Prize, AAS President Mrinalini Sinha praised the publication, explaining why it deserved the distinction: “This self-contained online unit is a refreshing update to available Cambodian studies resources at the high school and community college level, going beyond The Killing Fields to bring new information and perspectives from Cambodians and Cambodian-Americans to key themes that span the social studies curriculum.” Following the award ceremony, Sekiguchi was congratulated by AAS Executive Director Michael Paschal. Sekiguchi is a two-time recipient of the prize and the sixth time for 91�Թ�.

Background and Synopses of Films
In 1975, a radical new government assumed power in Cambodia and drastically transformed the country. Religion was outlawed, and money was abolished. Mass executions were sanctioned by the state. By the time the regime was toppled four years later, an estimated two million people—about 25 percent of the country’s population—had died from disease, starvation, forced labor, imprisonment, and execution.

In response to this tremendous upheaval, many Cambodians fled their homes for other countries, including the United States. How have Cambodian individuals and communities come to terms with their forced resettlement? What are the social and cultural implications of Cambodia’s turbulent history for Cambodians and Cambodian Americans today, more than a generation after the genocide and mass exodus? These issues are explored through documentary films that profile two Cambodian Americans as they remember and try to reconnect with their ancestral homeland.

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The first film, My Cambodia, follows a scholar and former refugee—Professor , U.C. Berkeley—as she returns to Cambodia and describes the genocide’s history as well as its profound legacies. Upon hearing about the Buchanan Prize, Um remarked, “[Thank] you all for making our whispered stories audible to others.” In addition to appearing in the film, Professor Um served as an academic consultant to Morimoto and Sekiguchi. She is the first Cambodian woman to receive a Ph.D. in the United States.

The second film, My Cambodian America, highlights a young photographer, , as he travels around the United States to capture the stories and scenes of various Cambodian-American individuals and communities. Through the film, students become acquainted with Cambodian and Cambodian-American history and begin to consider some of the complex issues that are raised by that history. “All immigrants share the same story of cultural assimilation, loss of culture, loss of language amongst…the younger generations,” Pin notes in the film. “And that’s absolutely true with Cambodians, but then you have in addition to that the added layer of having survived one of the great atrocities of the 20th century.”

A Trip to Cambodia
In 2013, Rylan Sekiguchi, Risa Morimoto, Professor Um, and cinematographer traveled to Cambodia to shoot My Cambodia. Reflecting back on the trip, Risa mused about how the structure of the film began to take focus before her eyes. “Professor Um’s personal experience gave us an intimate look into how this tragic history unfolded. It was impossible not to be deeply affected.” She also commented on how the once-in-a-lifetime experience helped her to conceptualize My Cambodian America as the trip gave her a glimpse into the homeland of Cambodian Americans.

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A Bridge Between Higher Education and High Schools
The accompanying teacher’s guide offers suggested lesson plans and provides classroom materials that supplement the information and issues explored in the films: context-setting activities, note-taking handouts, answer keys, discussion questions, and numerous extension activities. “I am so proud of Rylan and Risa’s directing of the films and Rylan’s crafting of the teacher’s guide,” remarked 91�Թ� Director . “The films/teacher’s guide package is an excellent example of making academic scholarship—namely that of Professor Khatharya Um—accessible to high school students, and teaching young students about ways to consider and capture—for example, through Pete Pin’s photographs—the relationship between diasporas and homelands.”

To view My Cambodia, please visit ; to view My Cambodian America, visit .

To download the Teacher’s Guide and other supplementary teaching materials, go to .

How does a community college instructor begin to tackle a lack of global awareness exhibited by her students? She spends an afternoon at Stanford with leading faculty and experts, as well as other community college faculty, to discuss issues of importance to the global community.

The Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (91�Թ�) and are offering exciting professional development opportunities to help community college instructors internationalize courses by incorporating recent area studies research and materials. The Education Partnership for Internationalizing Curriculum (EPIC) is funded by the National Resource Center Program of the U.S. Department of Education under Title VI.

Held on Friday, March 6, 2015 at Stanford, the first EPIC community college workshop focused on Global Food Security. Twenty community college instructors attended from 16 community colleges, with disciplines ranging from English composition to math, economics, nutrition, sociology, anthropology, biology and political science. EPIC and 91�Թ� organizers chose food security as the topic of their first workshop because it combined interdisciplinary appeal with international content.

At the half-day workshop featuring lectures by , an agricultural economist at Stanford, participants learned how every individual’s access to an adequate supply of high-quality food—that is, the individual’s food security is affected by very complex processes of production, distribution, and consumption. And how, despite decades of progress in agricultural technology, economic development, and poverty relief, food security continues to elude hundreds of millions of people around the world. 

Some topics covered and highlights from Dr. Falcon’s lectures include:

• Two world problems: the need to double food output this century without destroying the environment; and providing economic access to the billion plus people who are food insecure, not because there is a general lack of food, but because they are poor.
• Supply and demand issues: the importance of the green revolution’s significant impact on the supply of grains.
• The GMO debate: there are legitimate controversies and important arguments along with irrational extremes, and there is an important discussion to be had in the middle.
• The importance of development strategies in poor countries to reach the poorest half.
• Imports and exports: an international orientation on the part of a nation-state is generally good; often the worst thing is to close an economy, particularly in a badly governed nation.
• Redistributive land reform: it is not done usually in an evolutionary way, but usually revolutionary and the results are varied.
• The second half of his Dr. Falcon’s presentation was an in depth analysis of Indonesia, the world’s 4th most populous country, and the focus of his work for 30 years. Some of the insights from his experience include:
• Good advice often starts with the word “Don’t.” It’s easy to write a catalogue of the things that would be nice. In a good year you can do two or three things. Policy advice turns out to be finding a sequence of good things that should be done to improve various aspects of food systems.
• There are good folks in bad governments and there are bad folks in good governments. You can sometimes do good things even within corrupt governments.
• Most of what food policy is about is adjudicating the tension between producers, who want high prices, and consumers, who want low prices. It involves improving storage and roads and keeping consumer prices down while still benefiting producers.

The final part of the workshop, led by 91�Թ� Curriculum Writer , discussed how instructors can incorporate more international content into their curriculum. All attendees were given online access to a copy of the curriculum unit developed by 91�Թ�, Feeding the Poorest Billion: Food Security in the 21st Century, and a copy of the book, The Evolving Sphere of Food Security, edited by Rosamond Naylor. 

Through group activities, participants then collaboratively explored pedagogical practices for incorporating the material into their particular courses. Some of the ideas shared included:

• A creative fictional short story writing assignment demonstrating the connection between agriculture and health
• “Make a Meal” food security card game incorporating math and nutrition
• Having students share about the cities and countries they come from followed by a multicultural potluck for community building in the classroom
• Having students survey their families

As the workshop concluded, an English instructor with 40 years’ experience expressed her concern about students’ lack of global awareness, even basic geography, and Edman answered that this is the reason we have Title VI funding.

The next EPIC workshop for community college instructors, to be held on Friday, May 8, will be focused on Global Health. More information on this and other Global Studies community engagement activities is available at .

Michael McFaul, a Stanford political scientist and former U.S. ambassador to Russia, has been selected as the next director of the university’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

The announcement was made Wednesday by Stanford Provost John Etchemendy and Ann Arvin, the university’s vice provost and dean of research. McFaul will succeed Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, who was nominated in July as an associate justice of the California Supreme Court and elected Tuesday.

McFaul takes the helm of FSI in January.

"Stanford has long been a home for scholars who connect academia to policy and public service, and Professor McFaul is the embodiment of that model," Etchemendy said. "We are grateful for Mike's service and confident he will be a strong leader for FSI."

Arvin said McFaul is a strong fit for the position.

“Professor McFaul’s background as an outstanding scholar and his service as an influential ambassador give him a vital perspective to lead FSI, which is Stanford’s hub for studying and understanding international policy issues,” she said. “His scholarship, experience and energy will keep FSI and Stanford at the forefront of international studies as well as some of the most pressing global policy debates."

McFaul has been a faculty member in the department of political science at Stanford since 1994.  He joined the Obama administration in January 2009, serving for three years as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House. He then served as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation from 2012 to 2014.

McFaul already has a deep affiliation with FSI. Before joining the government, he served as FSI deputy director from 2006 to 2009.  He also directed FSI’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) from 2005 to 2009.

During his four years leading CDDRL, McFaul launched the Draper Hills Summer Fellowship program for mid-career lawyers, politicians, advocates and business leaders working to shore up democratic institutions in their home countries. He also established CDDRL’s senior honors program.  From 1992-1994, McFaul also worked as a Senior Research Fellow at FSI’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC).

“I am thrilled to be assuming a leadership role again at FSI,” McFaul said.  “FSI has become one of the premier institutions in the country for policy-relevant research on international affairs.  I look forward to using my recent government experience to deepen further FSI’s impact on policy debates in Washington and around the world.”

Arvin said McFaul’s previous positions at FSI and CDDRL will make for a smooth transition in the institute’s leadership.

“His familiarity with FSI’s history and infrastructure will allow him to start this new position with an immediate focus on the institute’s academic mission,” she said.

McFaul is also the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and plans to build on his long affiliations with both Hoover and FSI to deepen cooperation between these two premier public policy institutions on campus.

He has written and co-authored dozens of books including Advancing Democracy Abroad: Why We Should, How We Can; Transitions To Democracy: A Comparative Perspective (with Kathryn Stoner); Power and Purpose: American Policy toward Russia after the Cold War (with James Goldgeier); and Russia’s Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin.

“In so many ways, Mike represents the best of FSI,” said Cuéllar, who has held leadership positions at FSI since 2004 and begins his term on the California Supreme Court in January. “He knows the worlds of academia and policy extremely well, and will bring unique experience and sound judgment to his new role at FSI.”

McFaul currently serves as a news analyst for NBC News, appearing frequently on NBC, MSNBC, and CNBC as a commentator on international affairs. He also appears frequently on The Charlie Rose Show and The Newshour, as well as PBS and BBC radio programs. He has recently published essays in Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, Politico, and Time. 

McFaul was one of the first U.S. ambassadors to actively use social media for public diplomacy. He still maintains an active presence on Facebook at amb.mcfaul and on Twitter at @McFaul.

McFaul received his B.A. in International Relations and Slavic Languages and his M.A. in Russian and East European Studies from 91�Թ� in 1986.  As a Rhodes Scholar, he completed his D. Phil. in International Relations at Oxford University in 1991.

“Since coming here in 1981 as 17-year-old kid from Montana, Stanford has provided me with tremendous opportunities to grow as a student, scholar, and policymaker,” McFaul said. “I now look forward to giving back to Stanford by contributing to the development of one of the most vital and innovative institutions on campus.” 

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In an effort to create new opportunities for secondary teachers, college faculty, and students to engage with Stanford scholarship, the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (91�Թ�) has launched Scholars Corner. Scholars Corner will feature videos of scholars from the discussing contemporary issues and research in their fields of expertise, reflecting FSI’s research interest in the problems, policies, and processes that cross international borders and affect lives around the world.

Each video will be accompanied by a suggested short activity and/or lesson that can be used in the classroom to help students better understand the content being discussed.

The inaugural video features , the Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at FSI, discussing issues of governance and corruption in politics. Dr. Fukuyama has written widely on issues relating to questions concerning democratization, governance, and international political economy. His latest book⎯Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy⎯ published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, will be available in early fall.