Briefly Noted

Issue Date: 
October 29, 2007

Lecture Focuses on Progress of Women in Brazilian Businesses

Audrey Murrell, Pitt professor of business administration, psychology, and public and international affairs, will give a lecture titled “Family Enterprise and the Global Glass Ceiling: A Look at Brazil,” at noon Tuesday in 4130 Posvar Hall.

The free public lecture will explain the progress women are making in breaking through the corporate glass ceiling in a number of Latin and South American countries, including Brazil.

While the numbers of women within management ranks are on the rise, there are still only a small number of women who reach the top tier of the management hierarchy globally. However, the growth and presence of family enterprise has created some exciting opportunities for women in countries like Brazil, says Murrell, who will explore some of the trends for women in corporate leadership and the issue of the global glass ceiling, with a particular focus on the opportunities in Brazil.

The lecture is sponsored by Pitt’s Center for Latin American Studies in the University Center for International Studies.
—Amanda Leff

Two-Day Symposium Will Examine Relations Between U.S., Koreas

Pitt’s Asian Studies Center, part of the University Center for International Studies, will host an international symposium titled “The United States & the Koreas: A Critical Relationship,” Nov. 9-10 in the Frick Fine Arts Auditorium.

Beginning at 6 p.m. Nov. 9, the free public symposium will highlight areas of mutual importance to the United States and North and South Korea, including culture, public management, security, and education. Beginning at 9 a.m. Nov. 10, four panel discussions—featuring international participants—will emphasize the importance of promoting the study of Korea in the American education system. A full list of guest speakers is available on the Asian Studies Center Web site, www.ucis.pitt.edu/asc.

Young-Shik Kim, Secretary-General of the Korean Council for University Education (KCUE), will give a keynote address on Korean higher-education trends. Kim received his doctoral degree from Pitt’s School of Education in 2000. Inaugurated in the 1980s, KCUE strives to develop policies that accelerate national development, strengthen the competitive power of universities, and enhance public confidence in universities.

The symposium is cosponsored by Pitt’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, Institute for International Studies in Education, School of Education, and Ridgway Center for International Security Studies, and by KCUE.

Advance registration is requested. Contact Dianne Dakis at dakis@pitt.edu or 412-648-7367.
—Amanda Leff

Exiled Salvadoran Novelist, Journalist Speaking at UPG Tonight

An exiled novelist hailed by critics as “the voice of Central America” will lecture tonight at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg.
Salvadoran novelist and journalist Horacio Castellanos Moya will speak at 7 p.m. in Village Hall on the Greensburg campus. The lecture is being presented by UPG’s International Academic Village.

Castellanos Moya is the second writer-in-residence to be hosted by City of Asylum/Pittsburgh, a nonprofit organization that provides sanctuary to writers exiled under threat of death, imprisonment, or persecution in their native countries. His most recent novel, Insensatez (Senselessness), takes place in Guatemala and deals with the reporting of a massacre of hundreds of indigenous Mayans in the 1980s.

Literary critics have praised Castellanos Moya as an “extraordinary formal virtuoso” who has become “the voice of Central America.” The novelist has been hailed for his ability to portray Central American society and expose political crimes and human rights abuses on the left and right.

Senselessness is currently being translated into English for publication in the United States next spring by New Directions. Chapters from the novel can be read in the new Random House anthology Words Without Borders (2007).
—Wendy Mackall

Founder of Ghana Volunteer Group Visits Bradford Campus

Richard Yinkah, founder and executive director of Disaster Volunteers of Ghana, will speak tonight at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford about the work the group has been doing in many communities throughout Ghana.

Yinkah’s talk is slated for 7:30 p.m. in the Mukaiyama University Room in the Frame-Westerberg Commons

Yinkah will discuss what inspired him and a group of friends to start Disaster Volunteers of Ghana (DIVOG), a not-for-profit, nonpartisan nongovernmental organization that uses education and rural development programs to improve the lives of people living in deprived societies. The organization is based in the Ho district of the Volta region of Ghana.

DIVOG has helped to build classrooms, provided first-aid and computer training, and provided free medical care to people in need.

Members of the group face issues ranging from a lack of clean water and functioning schools to health and information technologies that can open up a world of possibilities.

Besides discussing the group’s projects in communities throughout Ghana, Yinkah also will talk about the history of the group’s work and the support that members have received from local communities and international volunteers and will answer questions about what DIVOG, Ghana, international institutions and people around the world can do to help each other.
—Pat Frantz Cercone

UPB Art Professor Presents Paper in Hong Kong

Kong Ho, professor of art at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford, presented a paper, “Commissioned Mural Art in Post-Colonial Hong Kong from 1997 to 2006,” at the 9th Asian Urbanization Conference held in South Korea in August.

“Murals are a relatively new art form in post-colonial Hong Kong because almost all imagery displayed in the public domain was created for the commercial purpose,” Ho said. “So when commissioned murals first appeared in Hong Kong as a result of a project that I initiated in 1997, people did not know what to think about them.”

Ho is the founder of the Hong Kong Mural Society, which produced more than 100 community murals in public spaces in Hong Kong between 1997 and 2006. His paper discusses how the final murals painted by the society were affected by factors such as negotiating iconography for each mural with both sponsors and the community providing the space. It also examines the initial role and later impact that the murals have had on Hong Kong urbanization.

Academics and practitioners from more than 20 countries attended the conference, which was held at Kangwon National University in Chun-cheon City, Republic of Korea, and was co-sponsored in part by the University of Akron and Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania.

Three of Ho’s murals are on display in or near Bradford, including an environmentally themed work inside Fisher Hall on the UPB campus and an mural titled “Honoring the Past and Embracing the Future” inside Bradford’s Old City Hall. The third, called the Mount Jewett Heritage Mural, has become a local fixture along Route 6 in McKean County. The 3,500-square-foot work of public art portrays the Mount Jewett area’s abundant natural resources, and its rich industrial heritage.
—Pat Frantz Cercone

UPMC Sets Fitness Camp For Student Athletes

For serious high school athletes who want to improve their skills and performance, the UPMC Sports Performance Program is teaming up with a local retired Navy SEAL to host a sports fitness conditioning camp from 5 to 9 p.m. Friday, Nov. 16, and from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 17 at Alexander’s Athletic Club/UPMC Sports Performance North, 1035 Executive Drive, Richland Township.

Participants will undergo aerobic, strengthening, conditioning and agility tests and drills as well as mental training exercises to enhance performance as an individual performer and as a member of a team or competitive group. Preregistration and a $150 fee for each high school athlete are required. Registration and more information are available by calling Alexander’s Athletic Club/UPMC Sports Performance North at 724-444-8850.
—Susan Manko