International Symposium

2024 CSU International Symposium

The Office of International Programs is pleased to announce the 5th annual International Symposium will be held April 2 – 3, 2024. All sessions and speakers will be both in person in the Lory Student Center and available virtually. 

This year, the International Symposium is aligned with CSU’s Thematic Year of Democracy and Civic Engagement. Presenters will address themes of democracy and civic engagement in a global context covering a wide range of international topics, including climate and environmental justice, technology, politics, and education.

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overview of events

Tuesday, April 2nd

TimeLocationSession Add to Calendar
11-12PMLSC 312

Virtual Access
Democracy on the Brink: A Global Reality Check
The world is getting less and less democratic. Democratic countries are experiencing backsliding and restrict the rights and freedoms of their citizens. Using the Varieties of Democracies data set, I generate maps and visualizations that examine the phenomenon in more detail and highlight where backsliding is happening, what exactly is happening, and what that means for people living in these countries. This will also include a brief discussion of what democracy and autocracy are, and how we can measure and analyze them around the world.
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1-2PMLSC 312

Virtual Access
Shaping Tomorrow: Navigating the Impact of Social Media on Global Democracy
A lot of the promise of social media has been about its democratizing power, allowing people who didn’t have a voice before with the traditional gatekeepers to have it on platforms like Facebook or Twitter. But social media have also been used as a force of repression in hybrid and authoritarian regimes. This panel will discuss the transformative influence of social media in shaping the future of democratic governance worldwide. The discussion will explore the opportunities and challenges that arise as we navigate the current social media landscape. There is a need for inclusivity and informed civic participation in understanding the role social media plays in shaping the trajectory of global democracy. The discussion will touch on critical topics such as misinformation, political censorship, AI, data privacy, and government regulation of social media.
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2:30-3:30PMLSC 312

Virtual Access
Climate Refugees and the Democratic Dilemma: Balancing Human Rights, Governance, and Environmental Justice
This thought-provoking panel will discuss the intersection of climate change and democracy, focusing on the pressing issues of climate refugees and environmental justice. As the world faces unprecedented environmental challenges, negative impacts fall disproportionately on the poor and millions of people are forced to flee their homes due to rising sea levels, extreme weather events, and other climate-related disasters. Panelists will shed light on the effects of climate challenges on democratic systems of governance and the vital role of democracy in addressing the plight of climate refugees and fostering a more sustainable and just future.
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4-5PMLSC Ballroom D

Livestream
KEYNOTE SPEAKER:
The State of Global Democracy: A Conversation With Julia Ioffe

Julia Ioffe is a founding partner and Washington correspondent at Puck, a new media venture covering the inside conversations in the four corners of American power: Hollywood, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and Washington. Prior to launching Puck, Ioffe wrote for a number of prominent publications, including The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, and Politico.

Born in Moscow, Ioffe’s family moved to the U.S. when she was seven years old. She studied Soviet history at Princeton and later won a Fulbright Scholarship to return to Russia, where she worked as the Moscow correspondent for The New Yorker as well as Foreign Policy. Ioffe’s area of expertise, built on years of in-depth reporting in Russia, acknowledges Russia’s threat against American democracy, while placing emphasis on the way the media, left and right, can both exaggerate and underestimate Russia’s strategic coherence and capabilities.
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Wednesday, April 3rd

TimeLocationDescriptionAdd to Calendar
9:30-10:30AMLSC 312

Virtual Access
Justice and Equity in the Face of Extractivism in Latin America: A Transdisciplinary Conversation on Democracy, Natural Resources, and Economic Development
In Latin America, democracy has been thwarted by extractive regimes that exclude many populations (indigenous and afro-descendent populations in particular) from environmental decision-making and from enjoying the benefits of natural resources while they degrade the environment in ways that disproportionately harm frontline communities. At the same time, these processes undermine the wellbeing of people around the world through biodiversity and climate change crises. Through transdisciplinary dialogue and action, the Just Social Ecological Transition in Latin America Program (JSET-LA) fosters a community that centers a more democratic research praxis by responding to and working with engaged practitioners, community members, and scholars from Latin America. In this panel, we reflect on the lessons learned within the first year of the Program, about the importance of, opportunities for, and challenges to center justice in social-ecological and sustainability focused action.
Add to calendar
11-12PMLSC 312

Virtual Access
What Critical Youth Empowerment and Civic Engagement Looks Like Globally and Locally
Organizations that engage a Critical Youth Empowerment (CYE) approach seek to engage young people from marginalized communities in identifying needs in their communities and taking action to make a difference. We will share cases of youth organizations that have used a CYE approach to cultivate critical civic capacities among youth in diverse after-school programs locally and internationally. We will tease out what worked in these programs as well as barriers in this social action work with young people. We will then involve audience members in applying this knowledge to their own efforts to support critical empowerment and social action in their own professional settings and/or personal lives and collectively generating principles and guidelines for critical empowerment in a variety of contexts. We will conclude the session with participants creating and sharing action statements based on what they learned from this session.
Add to calendar
1-2PMLSC 312

Virtual Access
Greenness and Democracy
Climate change and the decline of democracy are two global crises that have come to a head in recent years. Some have argued that actions that address these two crises are not mutually exclusive but complementary. Reducing reliance on fossil fuels and transitioning to low-carbon alternatives also make democratic economies more sustainable. This session will explore whether countries that are more democratic tend to adopt greener economic policies. Preliminary evidence on this relationship across countries will be presented and discussed.
Add to calendar
2:30-3:30PMLSC 312

Virtual Access
PLENARY SESSION:
The Ethics and Philosophy of University Engagement With Undemocratic Countries
There has been increasing tension on campuses related to international collaboration with undemocratic countries, and colleges are often reacting to geopolitical pressure from students, professors, and government bodies. Concerns about intellectual property, national interests, free speech and academic freedom have been pit against decades of globalized educational exchange and research. Some in academia have even called for developing a strategy to guide international academic engagement – a type of “foreign policy” for universities –though what that would look like, or whether to have one, is being debated.
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FULL SCHEDULE of events:

Tuesday, april 2nd

Democracy on the Brink: A Global Reality Check

The world is getting less and less democratic. Democratic countries are experiencing backsliding and restrict the rights and freedoms of their citizens. Using the Varieties of Democracies data set, I generate maps and visualizations that examine the phenomenon in more detail and highlight where backsliding is happening, what exactly is happening, and what that means for people living in these countries. This will also include a brief discussion of what democracy and autocracy are, and how we can measure and analyze them around the world.

Daniel Weitzel, Assistant Professor, Political Science, Colorado State University
Daniel Weitzel is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at CSU. His research focuses on the empirical analysis of democracies around the world. He has published on democratic backsliding, the decline of monarchies as a regime type, and negative campaigning in elections around the world. 

Shaping Tomorrow: Navigating the Impact of Social Media on Global Democracy

A lot of the promise of social media has been about its democratizing power, allowing people who didn’t have a voice before with the traditional gatekeepers to have it on platforms like Facebook or Twitter. But social media have also been used as a force of repression in hybrid and authoritarian regimes. This panel will discuss the transformative influence of social media in shaping the future of democratic governance worldwide. The discussion will explore the opportunities and challenges that arise as we navigate the current social media landscape. There is a need for inclusivity and informed civic participation in understanding the role social media plays in shaping the trajectory of global democracy. The discussion will touch on critical topics such as misinformation, political censorship, AI, data privacy, and government regulation of social media.

Karrin Vasby Anderson, Professor, Communication Studies, Colorado State University
Karrin Vasby Anderson is professor of communication studies at Colorado State University, where she teaches courses in rhetoric, political communication, and gender and communication. Anderson studies the culture of politics and the politics of culture, examining the ways in which political identity is rhetorically constructed and contested in popular media. Her commentary on politics, gender, and visual culture has been published by The Conversation and Reading the Pictures, and she is consulted as a political communication expert by local, national, and international media outlets.

Samuel M. Tham, Assistant Professor, Journalism and Media Communication, Colorado State University
Samuel M. Tham is an assistant professor of strategic communication and advertising in Journalism and Media Communication at Colorado State University. As a media psychologist, Tham’s research interests lie in the domain of digital advertising, ad avoidance, and problematic media use, especially in video gaming. He is interested in understanding processes of media engagement, and developing ethical advertising messaging for vulnerable populations that are susceptible to problematic media use. His published research looks at the intersection of digital advertising, problematic media use, and mental and social health.

David Wolfgang, Associate Professor, Journalism and Media Communication, Colorado State University
David Wolfgang is an associate professor in Journalism and Media Communication at Colorado State University. His research focuses on public discourse, political journalism, and media sociology. In particular, he studies how journalists promote the democratic norms of pluralism and public participation. Wolfgang is a former journalist and holds a law degree and Ph.D. from the University of Missouri.

Climate Refugees and the Democratic Dilemma: Balancing Human Rights, Governance, and Environmental Justice

This thought-provoking panel will discuss the intersection of climate change and democracy, focusing on the pressing issues of climate refugees and environmental justice. As the world faces unprecedented environmental challenges, negative impacts fall disproportionately on the poor and millions of people are forced to flee their homes due to rising sea levels, extreme weather events, and other climate-related disasters. Panelists will shed light on the effects of climate challenges on democratic systems of governance and the vital role of democracy in addressing the plight of climate refugees and fostering a more sustainable and just future.

Peter Backlund, Associate Director, School of Global Environmental Sustainability, Colorado State University
Peter Backlund has devoted his career to the planning, management and leadership of complex research organizations. His interests include the relationship of human activities, climate change, and other environmental changes; assessment of climate change impacts, vulnerabilities and response strategies; development and use of information and observational technologies for environmental research and education; use of scientific research for decision-making and public policy; and improving the communication of scientific information to non-technical audiences. Backlund was a senior advisor in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy from 1995-2001 and is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Max Boykoff, Professor, Environmental Studies, University of Colorado Boulder
Max Boykoff is a professor in the Environmental Studies Department at the University of Colorado Boulder, and a fellow in the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. His interests are in science and environmental communications, science-policy interactions, and political economics and the environment. Boykoff has experience working on six continents, and is a co-author and editor of seven books and edited volumes, along with many articles, reports and book chapters. He earned a Ph.D. in environmental studies at the University of California Santa Cruz, an MBA from the University of Colorado Boulder, and a BS in psychology from The Ohio State University.

Jonna Yarrington, Assistant Professor, Anthropology, Colorado State University
Jonna Yarrington is an assistant professor of anthropology in the Department of Anthropology and Geography at Colorado State University. She is a sociocultural and applied anthropologist who researches social, cultural, and economic liabilities of environmental change, including the ways in which practices of ownership, tenancy, and loss of land and houses are affected by anthropogenic climate change. Yarrington has long-term field research experience in the French Caribbean (Haiti, French Guiana) and in coastal and tidewater Virginia, USA.

Sam Houghteling, Program Manager, Straayer Center for Public Service Leadership, Colorado State University

Woman sits at a news desk smiling and looking off camera

THE STATE OF GLOBAL DEMOCRACY: A CONVERSATION WITH JULIA IOFFE

4-5PM LSC Ballroom D

Julia Ioffe is a founding partner and Washington correspondent at Puck, a new media venture covering the inside conversations in the four corners of American power: Hollywood, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and Washington. Prior to launching Puck, Ioffe wrote for a number of prominent publications, including The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, and Politico.

Born in Moscow, Ioffe’s family moved to the U.S. when she was seven years old. She studied Soviet history at Princeton and later won a Fulbright Scholarship to return to Russia, where she worked as the Moscow correspondent for The New Yorker as well as Foreign Policy. Ioffe’s area of expertise, built on years of in-depth reporting in Russia, acknowledges Russia’s threat against American democracy, while placing emphasis on the way the media, left and right, can both exaggerate and underestimate Russia’s strategic coherence and capabilities. 

Wednesday, april 3rd

Justice and Equity in the Face of Extractivism in Latin America: A Transdisciplinary Conversation on Democracy, Natural Resources, and Economic Development 

In Latin America, democracy has been thwarted by extractive regimes that exclude many populations (indigenous and afro-descendent populations in particular) from environmental decision-making and from enjoying the benefits of natural resources while they degrade the environment in ways that disproportionately harm frontline communities. At the same time, these processes undermine the wellbeing of people around the world through biodiversity and climate change crises. Through transdisciplinary dialogue and action, the Just Social Ecological Transition in Latin America Program (JSET-LA) fosters a community that centers a more democratic research praxis by responding to and working with engaged practitioners, community members, and scholars from Latin America. In this panel, we reflect on the lessons learned within the first year of the Program, about the importance of, opportunities for, and challenges to center justice in social-ecological and sustainability focused action. 

Andrea Baudoin Farah, Assistant Professor, Ecosystem Science and Sustainability, Colorado State University
Andrea Baudoin Farah is an interdisciplinary ecologist with multiple research interests around questions of change and transformation of socioecological systems in rural and indigenous lands. The geographic focus of her work has mostly been the Andes-Amazon. Her current research explores the impacts of land use change and climate change on livelihoods and wellbeing in the Llanos de Moxos wetland complex in the Bolivian Amazon, a biocultural landscape increasingly connected to global commodity chains. She is assistant professor at the Ecosystem Science and Sustainability Department at Colorado State University and co-director of the Just Social-Ecological Transitions in Latin America Program.

Joel Correia, Assistant Professor, Human Dimensions of Natural Resources, Colorado State University
Joel Correia is a human-environment geographer who investigates how landscape change and natural resource governance shape societal inequalities manifest as climate and environmental injustice in Latin America. Correia’s research currently focuses on indigenous territorial management and land rights, legacies of settler colonialism, expanding agrarian frontiers, political ecologies of infrastructure, and relationships between biocultural diversity, climate change mitigation, and conservation. Correia is an assistant professor at Colorado State University in the Human Dimensions of Natural Resources Department where he is co-director of the Just Social-Ecological Transitions in Latin America Program and principal investigator for the Climate and Environmental Justice Futures Collaborative.

Marcela Velasco, Associate Professor, Political Science, Colorado State University
Marcela Velasco is an associate professor of political science at Colorado State University. She teaches courses in comparative and environment politics, and her research centers on local governance in multiethnic municipalities in Colombia. Her current work includes collaborative research with indigenous and Afro-Colombian organizations in Colombia’s Pacific Coast, a multiethnic region affected by high levels of violence.

Ryan Finchum, Director, Center for Protected Area Management, Colorado State University
Ryan Finchum is director of the Center for Protected Area Management at CSU. The Center focuses on capacity sharing programs for people involved in protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures around the world. Finchum has developed and implemented communities of practice, seminars, and other capacity-sharing events for over 17,000 people from 100 countries. His primary area of interest is developing impactful, sustainable capacity-sharing programs that bring together ideas and inspiration from around the world. When designing programs, he focuses on both the tangible (importance of sharing and developing technical skills) and intangible (the individual confidence that people have to take action) benefits of capacity-sharing and development.

Paula Cepeda, Ph.D. Student, Human Dimensions of Natural Resources, Colorado State University
Paula Cepeda is a Ph.D. student in the Human Dimensions of Natural Resources Program at Colorado State University. Her expertise lies in the conservation of non-timber forest products and sustainable resource utilization in the Colombian Andes. Currently, she is passionately engaged in research on conservation strategies and climate change adaptation for campesinos in Colombia during the post-conflict period. 

What Critical Youth Empowerment and Civic Engagement Looks Like Globally and Locally

Organizations that engage a Critical Youth Empowerment (CYE) approach seek to engage young people from marginalized communities in identifying needs in their communities and taking action to make a difference. We will share cases of youth organizations that have used a CYE approach to cultivate critical civic capacities among youth in diverse after-school programs locally and internationally. We will tease out what worked in these programs as well as barriers in this social action work with young people. We will then involve audience members in applying this knowledge to their own efforts to support critical empowerment and social action in their own professional settings and/or personal lives and collectively generating principles and guidelines for critical empowerment in a variety of contexts. We will conclude the session with participants creating and sharing action statements based on what they learned from this session. 

Louise Jennings, Professor, School of Education, Colorado State University
Louise Jennings is a professor in the School of Education at Colorado State Univeristy who has researched and directed critical youth empowerment programs for over 20 years, and is co-coordinator of the Education, Equity, and Transformation (EET) Doctoral Program. Louise’s collaborative scholarship focuses on supporting DEIJ and empowering practices across formal and informal educational contexts. 

Ross Atkinson, Ph.D. Candidate, School of Education, Colorado State University
Ross Atkinson is a U.S. Army veteran, English teacher, and Ph.D. candidate in the Education, Equity, & Transformation Program at Colorado State University. Selected as one of this year’s College of Health and Human Science’s Deans Fellows, Ross does research about and with U.S. military veterans in writing spaces, examining how and if experiential writing supports or constrains the well-being of U.S. military veterans.

Khuc Phan, Ph.D. Candidate, School of Education, Colorado State University
Khuc Phan is a Ph.D. candidate in the Education, Equity, & Transformation Program at Colorado State University. She has extensive experience working with college students in both Vietnam and the U.S., having served in different capacities including academic support staff, English language lecturer, personal development planning lecturer, and academic advisor. Her research interests include curriculum design, personal development, and college readiness, reflecting her commitment to empowering students.

Greenness and democracy

Climate change and the decline of democracy are two global crises that have come to a head in recent years. Some have argued that actions that address these two crises are not mutually exclusive but complementary. Reducing reliance on fossil fuels and transitioning to low-carbon alternatives also make democratic economies more sustainable. This session will explore whether countries that are more democratic tend to adopt greener economic policies. Preliminary evidence on this relationship across countries will be presented and discussed. 

Edward B. Barbier, University Distinguished Professor, Economics, Colorado State University
Edward B. Barbier is a University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Economics, Colorado State University and a senior scholar in the School of Global Environmental Sustainability. His main expertise is environmental and resource economics as well as international environmental policy. He has consulted for national, international and non-governmental agencies, including many UN organizations, the World Bank and the OECD. Professor Barbier has published widely in leading academic journals and is a highly cited scholar on global environmental and sustainability issues. His latest book is Economics for a Fragile Planet.

The Ethics and Philosophy of University Engagement With Undemocratic Countries

There has been increasing tension on campuses related to international collaboration with undemocratic countries, and colleges are often reacting to geopolitical pressure from students, professors, and government bodies. Concerns about intellectual property, national interests, free speech and academic freedom have been pit against decades of globalized educational exchange and research. Some in academia have even called for developing a strategy to guide international academic engagement – a type of “foreign policy” for universities –though what that would look like, or whether to have one, is being debated. 

Kathleen Fairfax, Vice Provost for International Affairs, Colorado State University
Kathleen Fairfax is the vice provost for International Affairs at Colorado State University and serves on the Provost’s Leadership Council. She oversees a staff of more than 60 professionals within International Programs and collaborates with colleges and units across campus to implement the University’s internationalization initiatives. Prior to CSU, Fairfax served as the assistant vice president for International Affairs at South Dakota State University. Her career has also included serving as vice provost for Global Education Services at Arizona State University, director of the Office of Study Abroad at Michigan State University and at Purdue University, as well as similar roles at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, and DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. Fairfax holds a master’s degree in political science/international relations from Indiana University Bloomington, and a bachelor’s degree in political science and Spanish from DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana.

Jeffrey M. Riedinger, Vice Provost Emeritus of Global Affairs, University of Washington
As vice provost for global affairs at the University of Washington, Jeff Riedinger had leadership and administrative responsibility for the institution’s diverse global programming, including support for international research, study abroad, student and faculty exchanges, and overseas centers. He worked with colleagues across the university to develop and sustain strategic partnerships with universities, corporations, foundations, government agencies and non-governmental organizations around the world to advance cross-continent research, teaching, and engagement collaborations that address some of the world’s most pressing problems and most promising opportunities. He retired in the summer of 2023. As a legal scholar and comparative political scientist, Riedinger had a developing area focus, with special emphasis on Southeast and East Asia. Riedinger was involved in a long-term applied research project on land tenure security in China with colleagues in the U.S. and China. Riedinger earned a B.A. at Dartmouth College, a J.D. at the University of Washington, and a Ph.D. at Princeton University.

Uttiyo Raychaudhuri, Vice Provost for Internationalization, Denver University
Uttiyo Raychaudhuri serves as vice provost for internationalization at Denver University. He is charged with leading the University on internationalization programs, partnerships, and services, as well as developing and implementing DU’s comprehensive internationalization agenda. Additionally, Raychaudhuri manages a large and complex set of units, including International Student and Scholar Services and the Office of International Education, which runs DU’s hallmark undergraduate study abroad experience, the Cherrington Global Scholars program. Raychaudhuri joins DU from Cornell University, where he served as the first executive director in the Office of Global Learning, providing leadership and vision for the university in global learning, study abroad, faculty-directed courses and programs, and international immigration and support services. Prior to his work at Cornell, Raychaudhuri also served as director of Clemson Abroad at Clemson University and before that at the University of Georgia. 

Previous International Symposium Schedules