nenf

VIDEO: Chinese rising seniors (16-17-year-olds) offer world, tech, education perspectives in New England visit

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. -- Eight high-achieving Chinese teen-agers -- ages 16 or 17 -- are touring the U.S. northeast looking at elite colleges they may apply to -- and one of their stops was Williamstown.

The eight students are from Changsha, the capital city of Hunan Province. They are on a 12-day tour covering 19 universities and colleges -- Columbia, Barnard, Fordham, Kean, Princeton, Johns Hopkins, Loyola (Baltimore), Rutgers, Skidmore, Williams, Amherst, Harvard, MIT, Boston University,Babson, RISD/Brown, Connecticut College, Wesleyan, and Yale - for the purpose of giving them a first-hand experience with the college selection and admissions process.

The students and their instructor, Stephen Wilmarth, arrive in Williamstown on Friday, July 15, ate dinner at an Indian restaurant and attended the Williamstown Theatre Festival's "free theater" production of Shakespeare's "Comedy of Errors."

On Saturday morning, they visited with the New England News Forum and answered questions about their aspirations, their biggest surprises about their first visit to the United States, their use of technology, what the care about and why their parents are willing to commit to $100,000 or more to underwrite college outside of China.

Watch the video of our discussion by clicking below. We'll update this post more extensive as their trip progresses.

Video streaming by Ustream

VIDEO: The Big Gamble symposium at Quinnipiac University

HAMDEN, Conn. – Massachusetts has an opportunity to show the way in handling the problems which result from legalized casino gambling, but may have difficulting mustering the political will to do so longterm, two experts told a panel March 11.  Public officials, journalists, researchers and an industry executive gathered to assess the impact and reporting of casino gambling on New England -- the experience in Connecticut and the promise in Massachusetts. They were part of a two-hour public symposium organized by the New England News Forum, hosted by Quinnipiac University and cosponsored by the Connecticut Council on Problem Gambling.   READ FULL STORY . . .
. . . PHOTOS) . . .  BLOG POST    . . . WATCH STREAMING VIDEO OF TWO PANELS, BELOW.

CLICK BELOW to order a CD including QuickTime video of both panels ($25 + shipping):

Click the carat on the bars below the photos to launch streaming video. 

Above, listen to the first hour-long panel featuring: Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut attorney general;  Bruce MacDonald, chief spokesman for the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation anda former broadcast journalist; Dan O'Connell, Massachusetts secretary of economic development, and the prime proponent of Massachusetts Gov. Duval Patrick’s propose to license three casinos in the Bay State; and, Rachel A. Volberg, Ph.D., of Gemini Associates, Northampton, Mass. one of the nation's leading researchers on the social effects of legalized gambling. Introduced by Rick Hancock, of Quinnipiac University.

Below, listen to the second hour-long panel, featuring:

Carolyn Lumsden, editorial-page editor for the Hartford Courant; Gale Corey Toensing, staff reporter, Indian Country Today; Marvin Steinberg , founder/director of the Connecticut Council on Problem Gambling; and, David Collins, editorial columnist at The Day, in New London, Conn.  Introduced by: Bill Densmore of the New England News Forum.

MORE:
READ CURRENT ARTICLES AND RESOURCES
EARLIER STORY (includes bios of speakers)
RESOURCE: 1999 National Gambling Impact Study Commission

VIDEO: Hume describes N.E. Ethnic Newswire project

While traditional media organizations struggle with advertising and circulation losses, a steady beat is coming from another location -- ethnic media. And Ellen Hume is listening. She's the editor-in-chief and founder of the New England Ethnic News Wire (actually a website), which is aggregating stories and materials from the estimate 100 New England media outlets that serve ethnic and special-interest communities. Hume, who runs the Center on Media & Society at UMass Boston, is a former Wall Street Journal and public TV reporter and media scholar. She says the wire's mission is to elevate the visibility of ethnic media. The website -- in English -- has fresh articles weekly, some picked up from the ethnic media, and other original material. Watch Hume describe the project: