The UW–Madison School of Education has filled two crucial positions for its new Global Engagement Office by naming faculty members Li-Ching Ho and Adam Nelson as co-directors.
Ho is an associate professor with the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, while Nelson is a Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor with the Department of Educational Policy Studies.
“Professors Ho and Nelson will be an excellent team of leaders for the Global Engagement Office,” says School of Education Dean Diana Hess, who holds the Karen A. Falk Distinguished Chair of Education. “They both have the depth and breadth of global experience and knowledge that is needed to do this work with creativity and impact.”
The Global Engagement Office (GEO) was launched in September 2018 following a strategic planning process led by Nancy Kendall, a professor and current chair of the Department of Educational Policy Studies, and Kate McCleary, now the associate director of the Global Engagement Office.
The office is charged with: increasing student participation in study abroad and international internships, and supporting graduate students pursuing globally-focused work; providing additional resources for international graduate students and visiting international scholars; fostering the integration of global perspective in School of Education coursework and programming; and fostering new and existing university partnerships.
Ho’s research, conducted primarily in East and Southeast Asia, focuses on three interrelated lines of inquiry: global issues of diversity in civic education, differentiated access to citizenship education, and environmental citizenship. She was previously a recipient of the Vilas Faculty Early Career Investigator Award and the College and University Faculty Assembly Early Career Research Award. She has also worked closely with scholars and students in different international contexts, and has conducted professional development workshops for educators in countries such as Singapore, Brunei, and the Philippines.
Nelson is a historian of education who is currently working on two major research projects related to higher education in a “global” context in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. One project is titled, “Empire of Knowledge: Nationalism, Internationalism, and American Science,” and the other is “Capital of Mind: The Making of a Modern American Knowledge Economy.” Nelson, who served as president of the History of Education Society (U.S.), has built a network of international partnerships in this field, as well as a global higher-education studies, throughout China and Europe.
McCleary has worked on the global education initiative in the School of Education since October of 2017 and has been instrumental in starting and setting the vision for the office. Prior to coming to Madison, McCleary was director of the Global Education Office at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland.
Zach Nelson-Houstin has worked since January as coordinator for the Global Engagement Office. Prior to joining GEO, he served as the program coordinator for the International Student Services Office at the UW–Madison.