UMN Welcomes Vietnamese Ambassador

A delegation led by Quoc Dzung Nguyen, Ambassador of Vietnam in the United States, visited the Twin Cities campus on June 30 to learn more about the many UMN-Vietnam partnerships and discuss opportunities to expand engagement. 

Several UMN representatives presented to the delegation: 

• Joanne Billings, interim vice president for research and innovation, provided an overview of the University’s research portfolio and strengths. 
• Kumi Smith, Epidemiology & Community Health, discussed her project with Vietnamese partners to measure and address stigma faced by LGBTQ+ populations and people living with HIV. 
• Bruce Alexander and Trân Huỳnh from Environmental Health Sciences shared about their many ties with colleagues at universities and governmental agencies in Vietnam, including developing capacity in public health training with a One Health focus and research on silica exposure and silicosis surveillance. 
• Thúy Đoàn, Catalina Nguyen, and Ashley Metz from the Learning Abroad Center, and Dane Rowley from the Office of Admissions discussed student mobility and ways to expand study abroad in Vietnam and encourage more Vietnamese students to attend UMN. 
• A team from the CLA Language Center presented on a new Vietnamese heritage language project that will launch this fall. The two-course sequence will provide language learning opportunities to those who have had previous exposure to the language—most often through family or community. The project was represented by Ky Nguyen, Amanda Dalola, Saena Dozier, and Stephanie Treat, joined by Travis Workman, chair of the Asian & Middle Eastern Studies department. 

Gretchen Ritter, executive vice president and provost, and Ambassador Nguyen highlighted the value of the current partnerships and expressed their support for further engagement. The meeting concluded with the Vietnamese delegation surprising the CLA Language Center team by giving them a variety of children’s books in Vietnamese.