ExCEL Awards – 3/27/2013 – College of Charleston
from: http://www.cofc.edu/excelawards/index.php
Congratulations to Hindi student, Elizabeth (Marjorie) Burdette for being nominated for an ExCEL Award (Excellence in Collegiate Education and Leadership)!
Find more information on the in!Genius event.
TedTalks Meets Pecha Kucha
Coming to College of Charleston
The College of Charleston is home to artists, scientists, and advocates – all who are pioneers in their field. They’ll all be together on Tuesday, April 9, 2013 in an event for the mind. It will be the best of TedTalks and Pecha Kucha: one hour of ideas and stories that are as varied as the speakers. in!Genius is a free event, open to the public, that will take place at 5:30 p.m. in Sottile Theatre, with a reception to follow.
Steve Cody, a stand-up comedian from New York City, will be the emcee. Cody is also the managing partner and co-founder of Peppercomm, a global public relations/marketing firm, and a member of the College of Charleston Department of Communication Advisory Council.
About the presenters:
Natasha Adair, first-year women’s basketball coach will talk about the success of the program. In just one year, the team has doubled the number of points per game, shots made, and assists, while dramatically decreasing the number of turnovers. Watch a video. Read the College of Charleston Magazine article.
Professor Joe Carson and undergraduate students Thea Kozakis, and Laura Stevens made an out-of-this-world discovery when they identified a new exoplanet. Carson is a physics and astronomy professor who has discovered several plants (one of which was named one of Time magazine’s top 10 discoveries). Watch a video. Read the College of Charleston Magazine article.
Jimmy Freeman ’11 is one of the first graduates of the College’s Call Me MISTER Program, which addresses the critical shortage of African American male teachers in South Carolina’s lowest performing schools. Freeman is a teacher at a Title I school in Goose Creek. Read the College of Charleston Magazine article.
Naomi Gale and Ghazi Abuhakema are professors teaching and talking about the culture of the Middle East – the interesting twist? One is Israeli and one is Palestinian.
Alix Generous is a sophomore biology student with Asperger’s Syndrome who presented original research on coral reefs to United Nations Delegates last fall in India. She was inspired after a study abroad trip to Bali last summer. Read an article in the College of Charleston Magazine.
Edward Hart ’88 is a music professor and renowned composer who will talk about the inspiration of place in conjunction with some of his performed pieces. Read a College of Charleston Magazine article about him.
Brian Rutenberg ’87 is an award-winning abstract artist living and working in New York City. He calls the School of the Arts his “personal buffet line.” Watch a video.
Levi Vonk is an international studies major in the Honors College who works closely with migrant workers and migrant law.
Two College of Charleston students will continue their study of Hindi and Arabic through the Critical Languages Scholarship Program from the U.S. Department of State. Elizabeth Marjorie Burdette and Madeline Edwards will study abroad in 2013 improving their language skills in Hindi and Arabic, respectively.
The College’s Associate Provost for International Education Professor Andrew Sobiesuo asserts: “The College of Charleston is committed to infusing global perspectives in the curriculum and study abroad is one of the best avenues to accomplish that. The Center for International Education and other campus entities such as the Office of Nationally Competitive Scholarships work together to inform students of scholarship opportunities and guide them through the application process.”
Sobiesuo continues, “The study of any language and particularly a critical language is not only an academic achievement but a national security necessity. Language study is the vehicle to discovering and comprehending the soul of the other. And the more we as a nation can understand our allies (and enemies alike) and communicate directly with them, the more we can boast of our stature as a world power.”
Burdette will be studying Hindi at the American Institute of Indian Studies in Jaipur and residing with a host family. She remarked that the award is, “a long-awaited open door for me. I’ve been studying Hindi and Indian culture for two years now. I surprised myself by falling completely in love with both the language and the culture, and I have wanted the opportunity to see practical use of my knowledge in a way that will have a meaningful impact on who I am and what I want to become.”
When asked about how she wishes to use her College studies, Burdette said she hopes to work in the field of “social justice issues and asset-based community development in India, particularly in advocating for women’s equality in India and working with women who are at high risk of being trafficked into the sex industry.” She states “Hindi language skills will be essential if I’m going to live and work there.”
College faculty member Leena Karambelkar who teaches Hindi, said of Burdette, “She is an extremely bright student. I am honored to have her in class and feel happy that I could help her in realizing her dreams. I am sure, this bright young leader is going to enlighten many lives, and show path to many less fortunate and continue the great American humanitarian traditions.”
After only two semesters enrolled in Arabic at the College, Edwards, will be studying at the Qasid Institute in Amman, Jordan. She is looking forward to her summer studies because they will allow her to “learn the Jordanian dialect.” She says this is useful because the Modern Standard Arabic learned in the classroom is not the same as colloquial Arabic spoken in real life. Edwards will be living with a Jordanian host family which provides a full, immersion language experience.
Fam, an adjunct instructor of Arabic says , “I strive to create a welcoming atmosphere in my classroom. When students begin studying Arabic they have no knowledge of the language or alphabet. Everyone starts from the same place.’”
In the future Edwards has thoughts of “working for human rights groups such as Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International to expose the plights of marginalized groups and people in the Middle East.”
A program of the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, the Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) Program offers intensive summer language institutes in thirteen critical foreign languages. The selection process is administered by American Council for International Education with awards approved by the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.
The CLS Program is part of a U.S. government effort to expand dramatically the number of Americans studying and mastering critical foreign languages. Students of diverse disciplines and majors are encouraged to apply. Participants are expected to continue their language study beyond the scholarship period, and later apply their critical language skills in their future professional careers.
For more information about the College’s Center for International Education, visit the website.
Join Drs. Elijah Siegler and Piotr Gibas on their China: Religion and Culture trip this summer!
Dates: June 4, 2013 – June 25, 2013
Courses Offered: Religious Studies and International Studies
RELS 205: Sacred Texts of the East
ASST240: Special Topics – Food, Culture and the Environment in China
Deadline to Apply: March 1, 2013
Description: In this program to China, two separate courses will be offered, one concerned with Religion and the other with the everyday lives of the Chinese, including what they eat, their culture and their environments. The Religious Studies course will involve in-depth readings of several important Daoist, Buddhist Confucian, and modern texts. Wherever possible, students will read and discuss texts in the locations where they were written or used. The Asian Studies Course will focus on one of the world’s favorite cuisines and will explore the culinary traditions of China in their social and environmental context.
See this Flyer for full Details!
OR
Learn More at the Study Abroad Fair!!
Date: January 29
Place: Physician’s Auditorium
Time: 9-2:30
Join the Departments of Sociology and Anthropology, Health and Human Performance, and Women’s and Gender Studies for a public lecture:
Title: “I was trying to get with you’: Getting with the Politics of South Asian American Masculinity”
Speaker: Dr. Stan Thangaraj, a post-doctoral fellow in Sociology at Vanderbilt University
Date: January 31, 2013
Time: 3:00pm
Location: The Alumni Center of the Education, Health, and Human Performance Building
Please consider supporting Dr. Thangaraj’s outstanding research and important work with communities of color in the Nashville and Atlanta communities.
Abstract: As sport is imagined as neutral site structured through meritocracy, South Asian American participation in a quintessentially American sport like basketball provides an interesting venue to understanding the politics of sport, the different relationship of this community to basketball, and the gendered, racial, and sexualized realm of citizenship. In this paper, I demonstrate how South Asian American men practice a sport masculinity as a means to escape the
queering, emasculating experiences they have had in other public venues. In the process of performing what they consider a normative masculinity, these young South Asian American men simultaneously expand the contours of South Asian America by foreclosing it to various gendered, sexual, classed, and racial others. This is an ethnographic project conducted on co-ethnic only South Asian American basketball leagues and is part of book manuscript I am currently working on.
Join the Asian Studies program in welcoming Monika Browarczyk, Professor of Hindi language and literature at Adam Mickiewicz University (UAM) in Poznan, Poland and this year she is a Fulbright Scholar at UT Austin, who will be giving a public lecture on her research regarding womens’ life writings in Hindi in post-colonial India.
Date: Tuesday, January 22, 2013
Location: Addlestone Library, Room 227
Time: 2pm
*free and open to the public
From the Matador Network, learn about different scholarship opportunities for students who are interested in traveling to Taiwain over the summer to study the Mandarin language: “Get Paid to Study Chinese in Taiwain”