Vietnam Partnerships & Leadership Trainings
PSU’s Presidential Initiative on Internationalization, administered by the Office of International Affairs, affirms the value of connecting PSU to communities both locally and globally. Portland State sees Vietnam as highly relevant to Oregon interests, a country where our current partnerships can be further enhanced and interconnected.
The Center for Public Service has a proven record of more than 8 years of program work on the ground in Vietnam with measurable achievement of objectives including numerous student and faculty exchanges from Oregon to Vietnam and from Vietnam to Oregon. Some examples of our Vietnamese partnerships can be found below.
US State Department Professional Fellows Program
Professional Exchange between Vietnam and Oregon Institutions
The Professional Fellows Division of Education and Cultural Affairs' Office of Citizen Exchanges at the State Department has awarded a 2-year (2012-2014), $400,000 grant to Portland State University to implement a program entitled “Vietnam and USA mid-level professionals exchange program: Mutual learning for economic empowerment in the context of business and government partnerships.” The program goal is to promote mutually beneficial partnerships between Vietnamese and U.S. professionals; provide Vietnamese professionals an opportunity to gain knowledge of U.S. economic empowerment practices, and provide U.S. participants with an opportunity to share their knowledge with the Vietnamese counterparts. The Center for Public Service will implement the Professional Fellows Program and conduct a four-part, two-way Economic Empowerment Program for approximately 32 mid-level professionals - 16 participants from Vietnam, and approximately 16 U.S. participants.
EMERGE Political Leadership Training Program
A delegation of officials from Vietnam led by a Minister-ranked politician visited Portland State University (PSU) in the summer of 2012 for a political leadership training program through the Hatfield School of Government’s Center for Public Service (CPS). The program provided fifteen high-ranking Vietnamese public leaders and officials with the advanced leadership skills and competencies to help them to lead the country during the current period of transition.
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UN-Habitat Delegation to Eco District Summit
Portland State University through the Center for Public Service and in partnership with UN-Habitat Vietnam is hosting a high level delegation from October 20-28, 2012. The objective of the delegation’s visit is to strengthen strategic partnerships for long-term academic and professional exchanges between UN-Habitat, Portland State University, Vietnam National University and Hoi An and Quang Nam Province People’s Committees. The delegation will present at the 2012 Portland Sustainability Institute’s Eco District Summit as one of a select few international teams discussing the adaptation of sustainable development principles in the international context.
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International Sustainability Investment Strategy for Vietnam
In the fall of 2011, the Institute for Sustainable Solutions (in collaboration with the PSU Internationalization Council) started seeking ways to better align PSU’s internationalization efforts identified in the newly released Comprehensive Internationalization Strategy with sustainability strategies, using Vietnam, one of PSU’s strategic countries, as a pilot case.
With the guidance of Prof. M. Ingle in the Center of Public Service, representatives of the PSU/Portland & Vietnam Forum began working with ISS team members in late 2011 to craft a “PSU international sustainability investment strategy (ISIS)”. The vision of the ISIS for Vietnam is: “By 2015, PSU’s regional, national and international profile as an ‘urban sustainability university of choice’ related to faculty, community and student engagement with Vietnam is significantly raised.” The strategic intent of the ISIS is to significantly raise PSU’s international sustainability profile by communicating the high visibility benefits of the Vietnam portfolio for faculty research, community engagement and student education.
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