I am contacting you on behalf of Washington University Students for International Collaboration on the Envrionment (WUSICE), a student-directed organization that aims to facilitate interaction and dialogue between American and Chinese undergraduates on major environmental issues, in order to empower students to be the roots of US-China collaboration. From 4 November to 9 November 2010, WUSICE will host the first-ever US-China Undergraduate Conference on Climate Change and Sustainability at Washington University in St. Louis. At this Conference, twenty-two outstanding undergraduates from Washington University in St. Louis and Fudan University in Shanghai, China will have the opportunity to complete a Joint-Student Collaborative Project and participate in Mock COP16, a simulation of the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference. The Conference will feature a wide range of speakers from distinguished professors at Washington University to an officer at the China Consulate in Chicago. Our objective is to provide an interdisciplinary approach to the issue of climate change and to demonstrate the significance of transnational, cross-cultural collaboration.
I am contacting you as Director of the Political Science Department to ask you to notify the undergraduates in your department about the opportunity to be one of the 11 United States delegates at the WUSICE US-China Undergraduate Conference on Climate Change and Sustainability and to pass along the Application attached to this email. The eleven students from Fudan University have already been selected, and they not only excel academically, but also have a strong desire to learn from American students. This openness to understanding and negotiating multiple perspectives is a key characteristic of all potential applicants. Because the Chinese students come from a wide range of academic backgrounds such as business, chemistry, biology, psychology, computer science, history, political science, and English, WUSICE feels it is integral that the Washington University delegates also represent many academic disciplines. Although knowledge of environmental issues is recommended, any student who has the drive, energy, commitment, and openness to tackle the greatest problems facing our generation would be an ideal applicant. WUSICE strongly believes that interdisciplinary and international collaboration are essential for the creation of real solutions.
Please contact wusice2010@gmail.com or summergrin@gmail.com with any questions or concerns. You may also view our website at www.wusice.wordpress.com. I thank you for your support and consideration.
On behalf of WUSICE,
Summer Jiakun Zhao
WUSICE president