Meet Our NSR Student Editors — Marin Ekstrom, Assistant Editor – The North Star Reports – Sponsored by The College of St. Scholastica and The Middle Ground Journal

Meet Our NSR Student Editors — Marin Ekstrom, Assistant Editor – The North Star Reports – Sponsored by The College of St. Scholastica and The Middle Ground Journal

Marin Ekstrom, NSR Assistant Editor. Major(s)/ minor(s): Double major in Global, Cultural, and Language Studies and Russian Studies. Institutional affiliation: The College of St. Scholastica. Graduation year: Spring 2015. Year starting with NSR and MGJ: Spring 2013

I hail from Two Harbors, Minnesota, a small town that consists of towering pines, rocky shores overlooking Lake Superior, and a classically “Minnesota nice” (i.e. overly polite and passive-aggressive) populace. I am deeply interested in international studies and foreign languages, with Russia in particular holding a very dear place in my heart. That broad interest fuels my penchant for reading, writing, and conducting research. I will be working as an English language teaching assistant in Zhuhai, China, for the 2015-2016 academic year and greatly look forward to exploring a new country and culture(s) while gaining some professional experience.

I became involved with the Middle Ground Journal and North Star Reports as a way to rejuvenate my attitude towards education and learning. Pre-MGJ/NSR, I had been primarily motivated by obtaining a good GPA, which not only generates a lot of unnecessary stress, but also has a tendency of reducing creativity, enthusiasm, and motivation. The Middle Ground Journal and the North Star Reports offered a fresh perspective by demonstrating the joy and beauty of learning for the sake of learning. Furthermore, it shows the interconnected and interdisciplinary nature of many fields of study, which makes our universe that much more of an exciting, fascinating place. Being involved with the Middle Ground Journal and the North Star Reports is an exhilarating challenge, and I hope that its spirit of innovation also inspires others!
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Please contact Professor Liang if you wish to write for The North Star Reports — HLIANG (at) css.edu

See also, our Facebook page with curated news articles at http://www.facebook.com/NorthStarReports
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The North Star Reports: Global Citizenship and Digital Literacy, The College of St. Scholastica and the scholarly Middle Ground Journal’s online learning community and outreach program with undergraduate and K-12 classes around the world. The North Star Reports has flourished since 2012. For a brief summary, please see the American Historical Association’s Perspectives on History, at:

http://www.historians.org/perspectives/issues/2013/1305/Opening-The-Middle-Ground-Journal.cfm

The North Star Reports publishes edited essays from our students, particularly from those who are currently stationed, or will soon be stationed abroad. Students have reported from Mongolia, Southern China, Shanghai, northeastern China, The Netherlands, Tanzania, Ireland, England, Finland, Russia, and Haiti. We also have students developing reviews of books, documentaries, and films, and analysis of current events from around the world. We will post their dispatches, and report on their interactions with the North Star Reports students and teachers. We thank The Department of History and Politics and the School of Arts and Letters of The College of St. Scholastica for their generous financial support for The North Star Reports and The Middle Ground Journal.

Hong-Ming Liang, Ph.D., Editor-in-Chief, The North Star Reports; Chief Editor, The Middle Ground Journal; Associate Professor of History and Politics, The College of St. Scholastica, Duluth, MN, USA

(c) 2012-present The North Star Reports: Global Citizenship and Digital Literacy http://NorthStarReports.org ISSN: 2377-908X The NSR is sponsored by The Middle Ground Journal and The College of St. Scholastica. See Masthead for our not-for-profit educational open- access policy. K-12 teachers, if you are using these reports for your classes, please contact editor-in-chief Professor Liang at HLIANG (at) css.edu