Christopher Wheeler Receives Award of Merit from Vietnam’s Cantho University

Professor Christopher Wheeler of Michigan State University’s College of Education received the Award of Merit from Vietnam’s Cantho University (CTU) for building and maintaining a relationship between the two schools.The award was announced at CTU’s 40th anniversary on Oct. 17.

Wheeler, a professor of teacher education, established a project combining school reform with community development in poor rural areas that is now in its fifth year and involves over 120 teachers, CTU faculty, community development workers and community organizations. He also helped create a new grant program at the university, and a comprehensive CTU-MSU biotechnology collaboration.

Wheeler is credited for his leadership in this global partnership, a part of the university’s outreach mission.
“This collaboration has been a university-wide priority of top administrators at MSU since the mid-1990s,” said Jack Schwille, assistant dean of International Studies in Education at MSU. “Chris is the person who made it happen.”

Wheeler, who earned his doctorate from Columbia University, worked with CTU faculty to implement a Linkage Grant program to improve teaching in the School of Education. He has also helped to facilitate the development of biotechnological research projects between MSU and CTU researchers, and a program to generate funding for several CTU faculty to pursue their graduate studies at MSU. He coordinated MSU’s efforts to improve the teaching of English at CTU.

One of Wheeler’s major projects with CTU, Shell Project: Integrating Educational Improvement with Environmental Resource Management to Reduce Poverty, is considered especially important and inventive. The Shell Project seeks to reduce poverty and improve community development in poor areas by improving education in those areas.

“The work he, his MSU team and his Vietnamese colleagues have done to change school-community relations in rural communities in order to protect the environment and help raise living standards, while at the same time bringing about more emphasis on learner-centered, active methods of teaching in the university's school of education, is quite innovative,” Schwille said. ‘It will holds many insights and lessons of importance to other countries as well.”