Yong Zhao

THOUSAND OAKS, CA - An internationally known advocate for educational reform who has designed schools and founded institutions will speak at California Lutheran University at 6 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 21.

Yong Zhao will present “From Job Seekers to Job Creators: Educating Creative and Entrepreneurial Talents for the New Economy” in the Lundring Events Center. A reception for the Michael A. Moffitt MemorialEducational Leadership Lecture will begin at 5 p.m. CLU’s Graduate School of Education and Corwin, a Thousand Oaks-based publisher of professional development resources for pre-K through 12th-grade educators, are sponsoring the free event.

Educational institutions continue to reward compliant test-takers, even when it is clear that we need creative and entrepreneurial talents who can take full advantage of technology and globalization and tackle the tough challenges facing us, according to Zhao. With more than half of recent college graduates unemployed or underemployed, he thinks it is time for a new approach.

Zhao bases his argument on the massive amount of evidence he gathered for his 2012 book, “World Class Learners: Educating Creative and Entrepreneurial Students,” and his 2009 release, “Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization.”

His works focus on the implications ofglobalization and technology for education. An internationally known scholar, author and speaker, he has designed schools that cultivate global competence, developed computer games for language learning, and founded research and development institutions to explore innovative education models. The American Educational Research Association presented him with its Early Career Award and Tech and Learn Magazine named him one of the 2012 10 most influential people in educational technology.

He is the Presidential Chair and associate dean for global education at the University of Oregon and an elected fellow of the International Academy for Education.

Zhao was born in China and earned a bachelor’s degree in English language education from Sichuan Institute of Foreign Languages. After teaching English in China for six years, he came to Linfield College as a visiting scholar and later earned a master’s and doctorate from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The School of Education’s annual Michael A. Moffitt Memorial Educational Leadership Lecture was made possible by a gift from Karla Lysdal-Moffitt in memory of educator Michael A. Moffitt, who was passionateabout teaching.

Lundring Events Center is located in the Gilbert Sports and Fitness Center north of Olsen Road between Campus Drive and Mountclef Boulevard on the Thousand Oaks campus. For more information, contact Liane Smith at 805-493-3160 or ljsmith@callutheran.edu.