U.S.-Sino Relations Take Center Stage at Prestigious Global Forum

China Experts Tackle the U.S.-China Relationship Aboard Institute for Shipboard Education's Forum on Global Engagement

BOSTON, Aug. 16, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- J. Stapleton Roy, the former U.S. Ambassador to China, will be among several of the nation's top business, political and educational leaders to board the MV Explorer ship to speak at the Institute for Shipboard Education's Forum on Global Engagement from August 21-25.

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The four-day Forum on Global Engagement will take place aboard the MV Explorer, the state-of-the-art ship that serves as the floating campus for the Semester at Sea global study-abroad program. The MV Explorer will set sail from Boston's Black Falcon Cruise Terminal on Sunday, August 21 at 9 p.m.  The entire Forum will be captured in podcasts and interviews on the Forum blog: http://blog.isevoyages.org/category/forum-on-global-engagement/.

Roy and the other notable speakers, including The Boeing Company president and CEO Jim McNerney and Chung Po Yang, co-founder and chairman of DHL International, will address some of the most pressing issues related to relations between the U.S. and China.

"The course of a major relationship such as that between the United States and China is not going to be guided solely by the skill or lack thereof of an ambassador, but what an ambassador can do is make a meaningful difference," Roy, currently director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States, recently told The New York Times.

Prior to the ship's departure, will be an Open Ship on Sunday, Aug. 21 from 9:45–11:30 a.m. for anyone interested in touring the vessel and seeing how university students, thought leaders and voyagers travel together to learn about and experience our world.

The MV Explorer provides an ideal setting for discussing world issues. Each year, it circumnavigates the globe with hundreds of college students, exposing them to cultures, histories and politics of countries throughout Europe, Africa, Asia, South America, and the Caribbean. The Forum also gives participants a first-hand view into the Semester at Sea experience and life aboard a floating university, complete with a library, computer center, common hall and nine classrooms.

During the Forum participants will sail along the Atlantic from Boston, Mass. to Montreal, Canada, and will have the rare opportunity for one-on-one discussions with these distinguished thought leaders.

Follow the discussions, debates and new insights on China's influence on the U.S. and the future between these two countries on the Forum blog:  http://blog.isevoyages.org/category/forum-on-global-engagement/. Hear the podcasts of the day and see the important presentations as well as interviews with participants.

Previous Forums have hosted such luminaries as U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Nobel Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, KIVA co-founder and Semester at Sea alumna Jessica Jackley, and civil rights leader Julian Bond.

Media are invited to attend the Open Ship on Sunday, Aug. 21 where they will have the opportunity to tour the MV Explorer and interview some of the Forum speakers. Please contact Lauren Heinz if you are interested in registering to board.

Learn more about the 2011 Forum on Global Engagement's keynote speakers and program details at www.semesteratsea.org/FGE.

About Institute for Shipboard Education
The Institute for Shipboard Education (ISE) is a 501c3 non-profit organization based in Charlottesville, Virginia. Tracing its roots to 1963, the Institute administers the multiple-country study abroad program Semester at Sea with academic sponsor the University of Virginia as well as Enrichment Voyages and a Lifelong Learning Program. The mission of ISE is to educate individuals with the global understanding necessary to address the challenges of our interdependent world.

Contact: Lauren Heinz, [email protected], 434-243-4055

SOURCE Institute for Shipboard Education