For immediate release: Feb. 14, 2011

BLOOMSBURG — Leilani Kupo, director of the
BU Women’s Resource Center, will present the program “Cultural Relevance in Educational Reform: Lessons Learned from New Zealand and Jordan” Tuesday, Feb. 15, at 6 p.m. in the Living and Learning Community Center, Columbia Hall, room 119. The program, part of the International Studies Living and Learning Community Lecture Series, is open to the public free of charge.

Kupo, also a board member of BU’s gender and women’s studies minor, previously served as a research assistant for the International Comparative Education Center and the Higher Education and Student Affairs Department at Bowling Green State University. As part of her coursework, she traveled to New Zealand, taught a master's-level higher education course at Shandong University in China and participated in a Fulbright Group Project in Jordan.

Her doctoral dissertation, “What is Hawaiian?: Exploring Native Hawaiian College Women’s Understandings and Conception of Identity,” grew from her research interests which include educational access and indigenous knowledge and identity.

For information on the lecture series, contact Ferda Asya, associate professor of English, (570) 389-4433 or fasya@bloomu.edu.

Bloomsburg University is one of 14 universities in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education. The university serves approximately 9,000 students, offering comprehensive programs of study in the colleges of Education, Business, Liberal Arts and Science and Technology.