EAST LANSING, Mich. -- Two current Michigan State University students and a recent graduate will head to Shanghai this summer to participate in Expo 2010, an international exposition expected to attract 70 million people.
Dan Redford and Charles Eveslage, seniors in James Madison College, and Rachel Smith, who graduated from Lyman Briggs College last year, were selected in a highly competitive process to serve as student ambassadors at the show.
Expo 2010, which opens May 1, involves more than 190 nations ready to display their cultural achievements and technological innovations.
“Our responsibility will be to guide visitors through the U.S. pavilion and give them a glimpse of life in America and promote the assets in the country,” said Redford, who’s studying Chinese and international relations at MSU. “It’s like the Olympics of international business and cultural exchange.”
Eveslage and Redford leave for China April 10 and will work at the exposition through the end of July. This will be Eveslage’s fifth trip to China and Redford’s third. Redford will complete his senior year in Shanghai while Eveslage will graduate in the fall.
Smith will serve as a student ambassador during the expo’s second session, from July through October. She has two bachelor’s degrees from MSU – one in physiology and one in Mandarin Chinese, which she finished in December in Beijing.
After the expo, Smith hopes to stay in China and pursue career opportunities. “Although I am looking forward to improving my Chinese,” she said, “I am most excited about the diverse and innovative ideas brought to the expo by each of the participating countries.”
In all, about 140 student ambassadors were selected from a pool of more than 700 by the University of Southern California’s U.S.-China Institute and organizers of the USA Pavilion, the U.S. official entry for the event. The institute and the USA Pavilion will cover their travel expenses.
Redford and Eveslage, who’s studying economics, are documenting their journey through their blog, www.shanghai-exposed.com.
“I was spurred on by my interest in economics,” said Eveslage. “It became more cultural for me when I stayed there two summers ago. It’s a friendly culture, mixed with the learning opportunity, and I loved it.”
Sherman Garnett, dean of James Madison College, said the students are part of MSU's "tradition of engagement."
"They represent President (Lou Anna K.) Simon’s notion of a world-grant university at its best," Garnett said, "by applying their training here in East Lansing to a cutting-edge global issue – environmental technologies – in one of the world’s leading regions of economic growth and innovation.”