FSI researchers strive to understand how countries relate to one another, and what policies are needed to achieve global stability and prosperity. International relations experts focus on the challenging U.S.-Russian relationship, the alliance between the U.S. and Japan and the limitations of America’s counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan.
Foreign aid is also examined by scholars trying to understand whether money earmarked for health improvements reaches those who need it most. And FSI’s Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center has published on the need for strong South Korean leadership in dealing with its northern neighbor.
FSI researchers also look at the citizens who drive international relations, studying the effects of migration and how borders shape people’s lives. Meanwhile FSI students are very much involved in this area, working with the United Nations in Ethiopia to rethink refugee communities.
Trade is also a key component of international relations, with FSI approaching the topic from a slew of angles and states. The economy of trade is rife for study, with an APARC event on the implications of more open trade policies in Japan, and FSI researchers making sense of who would benefit from a free trade zone between the European Union and the United States.
A growing fraction of the world's civil wars seem to be breaking out on the African continent, and in the last few decades it has acquired a reputation as a hotbed of violence and warfare. Social conflict and political violence in Africa is a complex subject, and it will be useful to note a few trends in African civil violence, discuss a common (but misleading) explanations for civil wars in Africa, and then suggest two alternative framing for the patterns observed.
TheStanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (91Թ) develops innovative materials on key issues in international affairs for K-14 students in the United States and independent schools abroad. Multidisciplinary 91Թ materials serve as a bridge between classrooms of receptive students and teachers and FSI scholars and collaborative partners. 91Թ offered a number of important new publications for an emerging generation of scholars this year.

As with all 91Թ projects, collaboration with scholars and other experts on the Cultural Revolution was essential to the development of this unit. Andrew G. Walder, former director of the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, served as principal advisor and was instrumental in the conceptualization of the curriculum. Connie Chin of Stanford’s Center for East Asian Studies translated entries from a Chinese textbook that students compare with textbooks of Taiwan and the United States. Jiang, a local author and survivor of the Cultural Revolution, oversaw the development of a lesson that features her book, Red Scarf Girl. Jiang worked with many Chinese who provided their own memoirs of the Cultural Revolution for the curriculum, exposing students to first-hand experiences of Chinese youth during this time.
Another new 91Թ unit, titled Tea and the Japanese Tradition of Chanoyu, results from a collaboration with the Urasenke Foundation of Kyoto, Japan. This unit traces the history of tea from its origins in China 5,000 years ago to modern times, with an emphasis on its prominent role in Japan. By the 16th century, Japan’s tea practice had become formalized by Sen Rikyu, who integrated art, religion, social interaction, and economics into his tea practice. He so revolutionized chanoyu that he is universally recognized as the most important tea master who ever lived. The Urasenke School of Tea was established by one of his descendants some 400 years ago, and the Sen family has continued to pass on its way of tea for 16 generations.
91Թ worked with two of Sen Rikyu’s descendants, Great Grand Master Sen Soshitsu XV and Grand Master Sen Soshitsu XVI Iemoto, to develop this unit. Each wrote a personal letter, expressing their excitement about introducing American students to a cherished Japanese tradition. Grand Master Sen Soshitsu XVI Iemoto says, “In the age of globalization, there is a great need for truly international people, that is, those who understand and appreciate their own culture as well as that of others, and those who value both the diversity of mankind and the universality of the human spirit. These are the people who will enrich and reinvigorate our global society in the future.” His father, Great Grand Master Sen Soshitsu XV, adds, “I am very happy to have been involved with this project which, I pray, will help to contribute to world peace and goodwill through my motto ‘Peacefulness through a Bowl of Tea.’”
Epidemic infectious diseases have shaped many aspects of ancient and modern history. In an interdependent world, well-known pathogens and new, emerging infectious diseases continue to pose a global threat. At the same time, the biomedical and social sciences have been making incredible progress in the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of communicable diseases.

Recent events highlight the importance of emerging infectious agents, including HIV/AIDS in the early 1980s, the introduction of West-Nile Virus in the western hemisphere in the late 1990s, and SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) in 2003, and draw attention to the role of increased travel and global connections in facilitating the rapid spread of infectious diseases.
HIV/AIDS is now the world’s greatest pandemic. It has claimed more lives than the Black Plague of the 14th century. With an estimated 16,000 new infections daily, more than 40 million people worldwide are infected with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). More than seven out of 10 of the world’s HIV-infected people live in sub-Saharan Africa. The impact of HIV/AIDS on local economies, its potential to contribute to regional instability due to loss of human life, and the moral imperative to address the pandemic has brought prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS to the forefront. Increasingly, it is clear that a multidisciplinary team approach including social scientists, behavioral specialists, clinicians, researchers, and policymakers is essential to address this global pandemic.
Advances in epidemiology, molecular diagnostics, bio-informatics, and genomics have enriched our understanding of ancient and emerging pathogens and offer new avenues for addressing infectious diseases. Vaccines, pharmaceuticals, and new paradigms of public health have increased our ability to control and even eradicate infectious agents. The control of many formerly common childhood diseases has been effectively achieved through the development of vaccines. Smallpox and measles provide examples of diseases that have been eradicated by the culmination of modern innovative public health approaches and widespread vaccination. In the news today, the potential for a viral antigenic shift resulting in a more transmissible form of the deadly H5N1 influenza virus has led to extensive media coverage and disaster planning at local, state, and federal levels of government, as well as international public health bodies.
Teachers and students need a strong foundation in the biologic and social sciences to place these events and responses in context and to allow transfer of vital information and understanding to the community at large. There have been few initiatives to provide high school teachers with accurate, up-to-date knowledge on infectious diseases. U.S. high school students continue to be exposed to global infectious diseases through sensationalized media coverage including popular films and television.
We have been developing a high school curriculum unit with Stanford students Robin Lee, Michelle Silver, Piya Sorcar, and Jessica Zhang and Gary Mukai of 91Թ to allow teachers and students to place news concerning infectious diseases in perspective; appreciate diverse social and economic responses to infectious diseases; and understand infectious diseases in the context of a global, interdependent world. The curriculum will also encourage students to consider issues related to epidemic and pandemic infectious diseases and their own personal risk.
The proposed five-module unit is as follows, with the first module having been completed this summer:
I: Introduction to Virology and Infectious Diseases
II: The Epidemiology of HIV/AIDS in the United States and around the World
III: Science, Economics, and Business in Infectious Diseases
IV: Local and International Politics and Policy in Infectious Diseases
V: Community and Personal Health
91Թ and The Stanford Challenge: 30 Years of Educating New Generations of Leaders
“Preparing the next generation of leaders and creating more informed elementary and secondary students means changing and improving curricula, setting higher standards, and ensuring that content is based on current research relevant to the world’s critical problems and urgent issues.” Coit “Chip” Blacker, FSI Director and Co-Chair, International Initiative
91Թ was established more than 30 years ago and serves as a bridge between FSI and elementary and secondary schools in the United States and independent schools abroad. 91Թ’s original mission in 1976 was to help students understand that we live in an increasingly interdependent world that faces problems on a global scale. For 30 years, 91Թ has continued to address this original mission and currently focuses its efforts primarily in three areas:
- curriculum development for elementary and secondary schools;
- teacher professional development; and
- distance-learning education.
91Թ hopes to continue to educate new generations of leaders by addressing five key initiatives of The Stanford Challenge, announced by President Hennessy last fall.
Initiative on Human Health / 1
91Թ is working with the School of Medicine and the Center for Health Policy on a high school curriculum unit that focuses on HIV/AIDS. 91Թ is collaborating with Drs. Seble Kassaye, David Katzenstein, and Lucy Thairu of the School of Medicine’s Division of Infectious Diseases & Geographic Medicine. Using an epidemiological framework, students will be encouraged to consider the many issues involved in the pandemic, including but not limited to poverty, gender inequality, and biomedical research and development. Two Stanford undergraduates, Jessica Zhang and Chenxing Han, are working with the physicians on this unit.
Initiative on the Environment and Sustainability / 2
91Թ recently completed a curriculum unit called 10,000 Shovels: China's Urbanization and Economic Development. 10,000 Shovels examines China’s breakneck growth through a short documentary that integrates statistics, video footage, and satellite images. The documentary, developed by Professor Karen Seto of the Center for Environmental Science and Policy, focuses on China’s Pearl River Delta region while the accompanying teacher’s guide takes a broader perspective, exploring many current environmental issues facing China. Stanford’s School of Earth Sciences is helping to promote this unit and documentary.
The International Initiative / 3
All of 91Թ’s curriculum units focus on international topics. Two of 91Թ’s most popular units are Inside the Kremlin: Soviet and Russian Leaders from Lenin to Putin and Democracy-Building in Afghanistan. Inside the Kremlin introduces students to key elements of Soviet and Russian history through the philosophies and legacies of six of its leaders—Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and Putin. The unit includes (on DVD) six lectures by six FSI faculty members, including FSI director Coit D. Blacker; professors David Holloway and Gail W. Lapidus, CISAC; professor and deputy FSI director Michael A. McFaul; history professor Norman M. Naimark; and history professor Amir Eshel, Forum on Contemporary Europe.
Democracy-Building in Afghanistan is a teacher’s guide for a film called Hell of a Nation. The film’s lead advisor and 91Թ’s key advisor was former CDDRL fellow J. Alexander Thier. Hell of a Nation documents the lives of two Afghans participating in the political process to develop a new constitution for Afghanistan—illustrating the “human face” of democracy-building and elucidating the complexities and difficulties of democratic construction in a divided and historically conflict-ridden nation.
Arts and Creativity Initiative / 4
Following 9/11, 91Թ decided to develop a unit called Islamic Civilization and the Arts, which introduces students to various elements of Islamic civilization through a humanities approach. Lessons on art, the mosque, Arabic language and calligraphy, poetry, and music provide students with experience analyzing myriad primary source materials, such as images, audio clips, sayings of Muhammad, and excerpts from the Quran. In each lesson, students learn about the history, principles, and culture of Islam as they pertain to particular forms of art.
91Թ recently completed a new unit called Along the Silk Road, which explores the vast ancient network of cultural, economic, and technological exchange that connected East Asia to the Mediterranean. Students learn how goods, belief systems, art, music, and people traveled across such vast distances to create interdependence among disparate cultures. This was a collaboration with the Silk Road Project, the Art Institute of Chicago, Stanford’s Cantor Arts Center and Center for East Asian Studies, and the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center.
The K-12 Initiative / 5
91Թ develops curriculum based on FSI scholarship, conducts teacher professional development seminars locally, nationally, and internationally, and also offers a distance-learning course called the to U.S. high school students. At seminars at Stanford, FSI faculty members offer lectures to the teachers and 91Թ curriculum writers give curriculum demonstrations that draw upon the content presented in the lectures. Last summer, Stanford professor Al Dien (Asian Languages) and the 91Թ staff gave a workshop for 80 teachers in the Chicago Public Schools. World-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma performed at the workshop.
The Reischauer Scholars Program is a distance-learning course sponsored by 91Թ. Named in honor of former ambassador to Japan Edwin O. Reischauer, a leading educator and noted scholar on Japanese history and culture, the RSP annually selects 25 exceptional high school juniors and seniors from throughout the United States to engage in an intensive study of Japan. This course provides students with a broad overview of Japanese history, literature, religion, art, politics, and economics, with a special focus on the U.S.-Japan relationship. Top scholars affiliated with the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (including Ambassador Michael H. Armacost, Professor Daniel I. Okimoto, and Professor ), leading diplomats, and young professionals provide web-based lectures as well as engage students in online dialogue. These lectures and discussions are woven into an overall curriculum that provides students with reading materials and assignments.
91Թ has for many years focused on the initiatives that have been identified by President Hennessy to be at the core of The Stanford Challenge. By continuing to focus on these initiatives, the 91Թ staff hopes to continue to make FSI scholarship accessible to a national and international audience of educators and students, with the ultimate goal of empowering a new generation of leaders with the tools needed to deal with complex problems on a global scale.
For 2009, 91Թ has developed four new curriculum units: Examining Long-term Radiation Effects, Interactive Teaching AIDS: A Comprehensive HIV/AIDS Prevention Curriculum, China's Republican Era, 1911 to 1949, and Teacher's Guide to Wings of Defeat.
616 Jane Stanford Way
Encina Hall, E005
Stanford, CA 94305-6060
Waka Brown is a Curriculum Specialist for the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (91Թ). She has also served as the Coordinator and Instructor of the Reischauer Scholars Program from 2003 to 2005. Prior to joining 91Թ in 2000, she was a Japanese language teacher at Silver Creek High School in San Jose, CA, and a Coordinator for International Relations for the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program.
Waka’s academic interests lie in curriculum and instruction. She received a B.A. in International Relations from 91Թ as well as teaching credentials and M.Ed. through the Stanford Teacher Education Program.
In addition to curricular publications for 91Թ, Waka has also produced teacher guides for films such as , a film about democracy activists in Egypt, Malaysia, Ukraine, Venezuela and Zimbabwe, and Can’t Go Native?, a film that chronicles Professor Emeritus Keith Brown’s relationship with the community in Mizusawa, an area in Japan largely bypassed by world media.
She has presented teacher seminars nationally for the National Council for the Social Studies in Seattle; the National Consortium for Teaching about Asia in both Denver and Los Angeles; the National Council for the Social Studies, Phoenix; Symposium on Asia in the Curriculum, Lexington; Japan Information Center, Embassy of Japan, Washington. D.C., and the Hawaii International Conference on the Humanities. She has also presented teacher seminars internationally for the East Asia Regional Council of Overseas Schools in Tokyo, Japan, and for the European Council of International Schools in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
In 2004 and 2008, Waka received the Franklin Buchanan Prize, which is awarded annually to honor an outstanding curriculum publication on Asia at any educational level, elementary through university. In 2019, Waka received the U.S.-Japan Foundation and EngageAsia’s national Elgin Heinz Outstanding Teacher Award, Humanities category.
Reischauer Scholars Honored at Stanford
On August 17, 2007, 91Թ held an awards ceremony to honor two of the top scholars from its Reischauer Scholars Program, a distance learning course on Japan and U.S.-Japan relations for high school students.
The event featured opening remarks by Makoto Yamanaka, then consul general of Japan in San Francisco; Stanford Professor Peter Duus, Department of History; and Yukiko Ono, assistant director of the Center for Global Partnership at the Japan Foundation. In addition, the award recipients, Kseniya Charova and Sekhar Paladugu, presented their final research essays on Japan's lean production paradigm and U.S.-Japan diplomacy.
616 Jane Stanford Way
Encina Hall, E005
Stanford, CA 94305-6060
Sabrina Ishimatsu is the Event Coordinator and Distance Learning Instructor for the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (91Թ). Prior to joining 91Թ in 2012, she assisted Professor Gi-Wook Shin and Ambassador Michael Armacost at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC). She has experience working in the private and international public sectors including the Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco, the Little Tokyo Service Center Community Development Corporation, and Compuware Corporation. Sabrina is also a former teacher on the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program.
As the Event Coordinator, she organizes 91Թ events including the Hana-Stanford Conference on Korea for Secondary School Teachers, award ceremonies, and various visits by high school and college students from Japan. As a Distance Learning Instructor, she is leading the 91Թ/Stanford e-Course on Global Health for Takatsuki High School.
Sabrina received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Business and Public Administration at the University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, Washington.
Sabrina is a former board member of the following organizations: JET Alumni Association of Northern California, JET Alumni Association of Southern California, and Gemini Crickets Parents of Multiples Club of Silicon Valley.