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New Director, Terry Weidner, Hired for UM’s Mansfield Center

An expert on East Asia with 12 years experience in international education administration has been hired to lead the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Center at The University of Montana.

Terry Weidner is currently director of the Asian Affairs Center and the Missouri International Training Institute at the University of Missouri-Columbia. He will start his UM director duties in September with an annual salary of $106,000. He replaces Conrad Snyder, who has been interim director of the Mansfield Center since March.

Weidner was hired after a national search in which two people were recommended to UM President George Dennison for his consideration. Dennison said Weidner has the background, experience and array of talents that most closely fits the needs of the Mansfield Center at this time.

Weidner has directed the Asian Affairs Center since 1998. In that role he worked to improve the University of Missouri’s Asian curriculum and Asia-related research. He also forged relationships with partner institutions in China, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia and Korea.

He also developed Asian alumni relations, crafted symposiums and programming about key Asia-related issues and shouldered responsibility for Far East development and grant writing.

In his role as director of the Missouri International Training Institute, Weidner was responsible for marketing, negotiating and planning training for Asian government and business personnel. As an adjunct professor, he taught a course titled "Doing Business in China" at the University of Columbia College of Business, and he regularly contributed to classes as a guest lecturer.

From 1991 to 1998, Weidner was associate director of the Office of International Programs at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. During 1985-91 he was a Chinese media analyst for the Foreign Broadcast Information Service in Reston, Va. He was an assistant and associated professor at Ohio Wesleyan University from 1980 to 1985.

Weidner earned a doctoral degree in Chinese history from the University of California, Davis, in 1980. He earned a master’s degree in Far Eastern Studies from the University of Michigan in 1972. He speaks Mandarin Chinese, French, Spanish and some Japanese.

The purpose of UM’s Mansfield Center is to create a clearer understanding of our interdependent world — one in which three out of every five people is Asian. The center provides academic courses, seminars, public lectures, conferences and cultural events in the areas of Asian affairs and ethics in public affairs.

The center is named for Maureen and Mike Mansfield. Mr. Mansfield, with constant support from his wife, served as a U.S. representative and senator for Montana from 1942 to 1977. He became the United States’ longest-serving Senate majority leader during 1961-77, and he was ambassador to Japan from 1977 to 1988.

Contact: Mary Ellen Ardouny, assistant to the president, (406) 243-4694; UM Maureen and Mike Mansfield Center, (406) 243-2988.

http://www.umt.edu/urelations/releases/default.asp?section=Mansdir

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