You can edit items very easily by clicking on the (edit) link next to the name of the person who posted the item. Here’s a brief tutorial to show you how:
watch?v=8KovvhrrEV0
Here’s a short tutorial on adding a basic news item
watch?v=kwwjuTwGUBM
This tutorial will show you how to quickly transition a past event from the Events area of the website to the News area so the past event is now a News item. The news item can either be a Departmental news item, a Section news item, or both.
watch?v=bdw__Y5iD0k
Adding an event to the Global Voices pages is pretty simple, but you can follow this tutorial for a little refresher:
watch?v=eIbM2Svdyeg
This workshop will introduce useful online tools for Chinese language teachers. These tools include virtual office, virtual classroom, tools of preparing for class, learning materials for students, tools for collaborative learning and working in group, etc. Taking advantage of these free or less expensive tools will make teaching more efficient and productive. Teachers should be familiar with these resources and reorganize them to meet their own needs. This session will be conducted in two parts: Part I: technology and Chinese language teaching. It will introduce the stages of development of CALL and some basic concepts in using computers to teach Chinese. The categorized resources available online will be introduced. Part II: reorganization and practical use and of online resources. This session will use the personal collections of online resources to demonstrate how to collect and organize the resources and make teaching more efficient and productive.
See the attached flyer for registration information. Registration deadline is March 14.
Location: Washington Hall 315
Wednesday, February 16, 4pm
The Bellini Colloquium in Modern Languages and Literatures
is pleased to invite you to a talk by
Nicolas Médevielle,
Assistant Professor of French & Francophone Studies
“Maps of Desire: French Renaissance colonial Ventures and Cartography”
Wednesday, February 16, Washington Hall 315, 4 pm
From the 1530s on, the city of Dieppe in Normandy became an important center of cartography and later on of hydrography. Dieppe was at the time one of the most important port for French international expeditions: the city sent commercial ships to Newfoundland, Brazil, the West African coast and as far east as Indonesia. The Dieppe maps of the mid-sixteenth century generally took the form of world atlases or of large world maps, all richly illustrated with lavish miniatures. These maps were hand drawn and painted; their large scales made them useless for navigational purposes. In this talk I propose to explore what we know about a set of Dieppe maps from the 1540s and 1550s: why were they created? What do we know about their circulation? Where did the possible models for their illustrations come from? I will in particular explore the possible connections between the advent to the throne of Henri II in 1547 and the apparent increased production of such maps in the latter half of the 1540s.
On June 5 I was ordained to the Catholic priesthood for the Diocese of Richmond. I currently serve at a cluster of four parishes in Portsmouth and Chesapeake, Virginia. I don’t use my French as much, but I put my developing Spanish to use regularly to serve our Latin American parishioners.
I taught French at the University of Richmond for over 20 years, retiring in 2000 I but did some night school classes for a couple of years after that. At UR, in addition to teaching, I was the Director of the Intensive French Program, hiring and training Drill Instructors, and I was also the Director of the Summer Study Abroad Program in La Rochelle, France. After I left UR I continued to teach at Virginia Commonwealth University part time from 2001-2006 and then really retired! I had started a Summer Study Abroad Program in France for VCU in 2003. Prior to my stint at UR I taught French in an elementary school, grades 4-7 and in 2 high schools. I have hosted students from around the world who get my name and number through whatever organization has brought them here! I have thoroughy enjoyed meeting and housing them.
Would you believe that one can combine language skills with teaching skiing? Yes, it is possible. For a decade straight out of W&M I used French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish with private clientele at Keystone, CO, part of Vail Resorts. Then fell into international bike guiding with Vermont Bicycle Touring http//www.vbt.com headquartered in Burgundy, France. Eventually combined Human Resources with both organizations. Now I head up the Employee Center at Keystone, which is similar to a student union. Later this week I’ll help 100+ international housekeepers on-board. To keep my French up, I loan my organizational skills to the local Le Cercle Francais. In my spare time, I am the director of the Center for Lifelong Learning for Colorado Mt College http://www.coloradomtn.edu/cll My true indulgence for CMC is offering Italian workshops. You have to make life grand! Feel free to contact.
Immigrated to Australia in 2004. Currently working as an R & D chemist for a scientific instrumentation company. Missed homecoming this year, but had a great time last year when I attended with my wife ( class of 1989)
Since graduation in 2003, I worked for two years as a legal assistant before returning to graduate studies in the language I love,
French. I received my Master’s degree in French in 2007 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and am currently writing my dissertation in Geneva, Switzerland thanks to a dissertation fellowship. The Ph.D. is not far off! I also have continued to develop my Arabic skills, with the help of a FLAS grant for study in Morocco. My work as a contract linguist for the FBI has allowed me to apply my language skills, and I am grateful for the foundational training W&M provided!
This is a slideshow of the Summer 2009 W&M Study Abroad Program located in Tsinghua University, Beijing. Slide show was made by Tsinghua University Chinese instructor and 2009-2010 House Tutor Longzi Yang.
watch?v=U6F0WgZWK0I
As part of the Asian Studies Initiative’s Spring 2011 Conference on the Silk Road, Prof. Victor Mair of the University of Pennsylvania, world-renowned literary scholar and archaeologist, will give a lecture entitled “The Bronze Age and Early Iron Age Background of the Silk Road.”
A specialist on classical and medieval Chinese literature, Dunhuang excavations and manuscript culture, and early Chinese archaeology, and translator of such canonical pre-Qin texts as Sun Zi’s The Art of War and the Daodejing, Prof. Mair has spent his life teaching the culture and history of premodern China. He has authored and co-authored numerous books, including The Tarim Mummies, T’ang Transformation Texts, Painting and Performance, and The True History of Tea. He has also edited or co-edited numerous volumes, including Experimental Essays on Zhuangzi, Contact and Exchange in the Ancient World, The Columbia History of Chinese Literature, and the monumental An Alphabetical Index to the Hanyu Da Cidian (Great Dictionary of the Chinese Language).
Co-Sponsored by the Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Initiative and Chinese Studies, Department of Modern Languages and Literatures. Prof. Mair’s presentation will also serve as the inaugural Annual Finn Lecture in Chinese Studies, sponsored in part by a generous donation from the Finn family.
Location: Washington 201
“This was a challenge. I definitely learned a lot about myself, but it wasn’t the challenge I was expecting,” he said.
Pence was one of hundreds of Americans who were evacuated after widespread protests both for and against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak erupted across the country in January.
John Pence ’12 (courtesy photo)Pence began that month ready to spend a semester at American University in Cairo, studying Arabic and Middle Eastern politics. He was in the country for about two weeks, staying in a dorm in the Nile island area of Zamalek, before the protests began. The third-party study abroad program at AUC is not sponsored by William & Mary, but Pence was in touch with staff at the College’s Reves Center for International Studies throughout his time in Egypt.
“I loved it,” he said. “I met a lot of great people from all over the world, Egyptian students as well, and up until the protests began on the 25th of January, it was very peaceful.”
The night before the protests, Pence received text messages from some of his Egyptian classmates, telling him that he may want to stay in the next day because of planned protests. Monday, Jan. 25, thousands of Egyptians took to the streets, demanding that Mubarak step down. Over the next few days, Egyptian police clashed with the protesters and Egyptian troops and tanks were brought in to act as peacekeepers.
Throughout this time, Pence stayed in the Zamalek area, abiding by the curfew and staying informed about the events unfolding around him through satellite television and through his Egyptian classmates who lived in or around Cairo.
“I tried to stay away from everything because of my safety and because I’m not Egyptian. It wasn’t my fight,” he said. “I did feel for the people, and I still do.”
On Thursday, Pence went out to eat and was surprised to see that protests had reached the streets of Zamalek. The next morning, he knew the situation was really deteriorating.
“When I woke up and the phones were out and the internet was out, that’s when I was like, okay this is really serious,” he said. “This is the government really trying to show their iron fist.”
On Saturday, Pence watched as F-15s and military helicopters flew low over the city, and he heard that more tanks were being brought in.
“That’s when I knew this semester is not going to happen. Now it’s really about getting out.”
On Sunday evening, American University told students that the State Department was offering charter planes for American citizens who want to leave the country. Pence got on a bus with other students the next day to be transported to a hangar near the international airport in Cairo.
That bus ride was the first time that Pence had left Zamalek since the protests began – and the first time he saw the tanks on the streets and the burned buildings. At the airport, Pence joined hundreds of others in a long line for one of the charter flights.
“It was the line to freedom, basically,” he said. “Everybody was anxious to get out.”
After waiting in line for seven hours and leaving a pile of his belongings behind due to a one-bag restriction, Pence boarded a plane that was bound for Turkey. As he left Egypt, his thoughts were with the Egyptian people.
“Leaving, I felt bad for all the people that are out of a job now that we don’t have school anymore there,” he said. “You could see it on the faces of the Egyptian people as you were going to the airport. They would all say, ‘Oh, you’re going to be back, right? We’ll see you soon,’ and it was just sad.”
After a brief stay in Istanbul, which Pence used to see sites like the Blue Mosque, the William & Mary student finally left for the United States on Feb. 2.
“It was a long flight – a couple of flights – but I was glad to get home,” Pence said.
Now back in his home state of Indiana, Pence, a Spanish major, is working with the Reves Center to continue his semester in Argentina via the La Plata program.
Although Pence didn’t get to study in Egypt the way he thought he would this semester, he still learned quite a bit from his experience there, including “how fortunate we are in this country to have a somewhat stable democracy and also how dangerous the world is.”
Pence said it was really interesting to see the events unfold from both an insider and an outsider perspective. For instance, although the violent protests made the news, Egyptians were also trying to come up with peaceful and proactive solutions to some of the country’s problems.
“I know a lot of students who went out when the protests started and were encouraging people to clean the streets up and being proactive,” said Pence. “If (people are complaining) about how dirty the streets are in Cairo, let’s do something about it. But that message gets swallowed up by people who decide to cause chaos and havoc and fear.”
Via Facebook and other means, Pence has kept in touch with many of the students he met in Egypt.
“We only had a week and a half or two weeks with each other, but you go through something like that, you get to know people pretty well,” he said.
And as he prepares to leave for yet another country, Pence continues to monitor the situation in Egypt.
“I hope that there’s a peaceful resolution in sight soon,” he said.
Shannon has just begun her masters in the Regional Studies-East Asia Program at Harvard University. Her research focus will be modern Chinese literature, which she also worked on for her Honors thesis. “On a side note,” she writes, “you and the other W&M professors may be intersted to know that 4 years of W&M Chinese is enough to help a student place out of Harvard’s required language classes for the Master’s!”
Devon is finishing his master’s in painting this coming spring at the University of Indiana. He plans to continue working in the art world, and hopes to teach painting.
John describes his travels and studies of the past year: “After completing a Chinese major at the College of William and Mary, including a summer and a semester studying abroad in Beijing, I was awarded the Chinese Government Scholarship. Through this scholarship, I was able to study Mandarin for two semesters at Sichuan University in Chengdu. Sichuan Province was very enjoyable — the spicy cuisine there is famous across China, and I even picked up a few phrases in the Sichuanese dialect. I was even able to find some excellent coaches in Wushu (Kung Fu), China’s national art.
I am currently enrolled in the Language Flagship program for Chinese, which aims to create working professionals in a target language. I spent the past summer in Qingdao participating in language training for this program, using Chinese to study Sino-American relations as viewed by mainland Chinese. For the next year I will be continuing my study of Chinese at Ohio State University, and plan to go back to China in order to research the process of urbanization in China the following year.”
Here are links to a “slightly exaggerated” Chinese article about his experience learning martial arts and his profile in the Language Flagship program.
John spent the summer at the American Dance Festival at Duke University and performed as Tony in the mainstage production of West Side Story Suite while there. He is currently working as a free lance dancer in NYC and lives in Brooklyn.
Allie is currently working with ESL students and based in the Philadelphia area.
Megan graduated with majors in Chinese and English (High Honors). She is currently working towards a Ph.D in Comparative Literature with a focus on modern Chinese drama at the University of California, Davis.
Christopher is currently completing a master’s degree at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London. He is writing a thesis on the popular press in Republican-era China.
All films will be shown at the Kimball Theater on Duke of Gloucester Street
For more information visit the Film Festival website here:
February 19, 2pm
All films will be shown at the Kimball Theater on Duke of Gloucester Street
For more information visit the Film Festival website here:
http://frenchfilm2011.blogs.wm.edu/
February 18, 2011, 7pm
All films will be shown at the Kimball Theater on Duke of Gloucester Street
For more information visit the Film Festival website here:
http://frenchfilm2011.blogs.wm.edu/
Professor Rachel DiNitto and Student-Assistant Pam Kennedy recently set out on a new model for teaching Japanese culture courses at the College. Students in DiNitto’s courses have been producing much of their coursework as an online website. The project has had wide-ranging benefits, both inside the classroom and out. The idea is that DiNitto teaches the course and her teaching assistant, who in 2010 was upperclassman Pam Kennedy, would act as editor of the online content and student mentor. Visit the Post Bubble Culture Japanese Website Here or Watch the video below to learn more:
watch?v=4G-FGNvpmGU
Michael Roberts (’10) works for the government. (update: 2010)
Erin O’Grady (’10) works for the government. (update: 2013)
Rosa Mutchnick (’10) teaches English in Samoa (Teach for America) (update: 2010)
Seth Lacy (’10) works for the State Department. (update: 2010)
Richard Jordan (’10) is a Ph.D. student at Princetion University. (update: 2010)
Pete Giannino (’10) received Fulbright Scholarship and will be spending the next year in Germany. (update: 2010)
Sarah Argodale (’10) is a graduate student. (update: 2013)
Jacob Shier (’05) Received Fulbright and taught English in Ekaterinburg and Perm (Russia). Received M.A. in translation from Columbia University. “Right now I am in Daegu, South Korea on a one-yera teaching contract with Chungdahm Learning. I’ve been doing lots of hiking and weekend traveling, and still read in Russian regularly, Anna Karenina being my current project.” (update: 2010)
Sarah Hutchison (’00) currently works for the Department of State. She got back from Turkmenistan in September 2008 and will be working at the embassy in Bulgaria from summer 2008 until summer 2010. Sarah used to work at one of the institutes of the National Endowment for Democracy. (update: 2008)
Karen (Dause) Romanovich (’02) “I think the last time I saw you was perhaps after my first year in Kazakhstan? I spent a total of three years in Kazakhstan, the first in Karaganda and the last two in Kokshetau. Then I moved to Wheaton, Illinois for grad school in Biblical Exegesis (where I was pleasantly surprised that Russian grammar gave me a head start on Greek grammar). Even more surprising was the number of Russian speakers I became connected with in the area. I found out about a small Russian congregation at a local American church, and began attending there as a way to ease back into life in the US. A year later (2005), a number of Meskhetian Turkish refugees moved into our area from Russia. I became good friends (and a ready resource) for them, and continue to spend lots of time with them.
A little over a year ago, I married Vadim Romanovich, the son of one of the Russian-speaking couples in the Russian fellowship I had been attending. He is originally from Latvia and I have enjoyed being a part of his family and culture. So, I do keep up with my Russian, though still with many mistakes.” (update: 2008)
Larisa (Nargi) Gervasi (’08) works for Chesapeake Regional Healthcare Foundation (update: 2010)
Linda Crossman (’08) works for the Defense Security Service (update: 2013).
Mikhail Zeldovich (’97) received a law degree from Harvard University and is currently practicing law for the US government in DC. (update: 2013)
Nicole Radshaw (’97) received her Masters degree in Slavic Languages and Literatures from the University of Virginia. (update: 2008)
Melissa Preston Horwitz (’95) Foreign Service Officer for the US Dept. of State. Stationed in China (update: 2010).
Jenne Powers (’97) teaches in Boston area. (update: 2009)
Got her MA in Russian Lit from UNC, Chapel Hill. She was recently awarded a Fulbright Grant to do dissertation research in Moscow in the Fall and Winter of 2005-06. (update: 2008)
Jen Otterbein (’97) “After teaching Spanish for seven years in high school in New Jersey, I quit my job this summer to go back to school. I am currently getting my Masters of Divinity at Alliance Theological Seminary in Nyack, NY. One of the families that is in my program spent a summer teaching English at Gerzen University in St. Petersburg where I studied Russian in 1995! They are the first people I have ever met that were at the same school in Russia! So we enjoy talking about the school and St. Petersburg. They are hoping to move to Russia permanently after graduation. Who knows if I will find myself there again when I graduate…” (update: 2008)
“Studying Russian at William & Mary was one of the best decisions I have ever made, and has truly benefitted me in everything I have done. Thanks so much for all that you do! Encourage your students to keep going!!” (update: 2006)
Rachel Mikeska (’99) recently finished a Master’s degree in Historical Preservation at the University of Texas, Austin, and is now on an Alpha Bank fellowship program in Moscow, where she will be working with local government organizations concerned with preserving historically significant architecture. For more information about this program, go to http://www.cdsintl.org/fromusa/alfa.htm. (update: 2008)
Pamela Mahony (’95) teaches HS social studies and special ed. (update: 2010)
Don Holt (’95) is currently the Vice President of Institutional Sales for TD Ameritrade (update: 2010)
(BA English, German): I have used my language skills extensively since graduation – I have been active in the SAP software and business process field for 20 years, first in consulting, and have now worked directly for SAP for over 11 years. I am currently a Senior Director, focusing on solution marketing, and use my German language skills every day, both written and verbal, and have contributed to articles and books in both English and German languages. (Updated 2010)
(BA, MA, ED French/Elem.Ed., Museum Education): Currently I am a French Tutor ! 🙂 (Updated 2010)
(BA Hispanic Studies & International Relations): I graduated from Indiana University Maurer School of Law in May ’10 and was admitted to practice law in Indiana on October 15th. I work at a law firm near my home town and am currently applying to the Illinois bar so that I can be licensed in both states. I worked for a migrant farmworker legal project during law school and have already had several opportunities to use Spanish in my practice. In a few months I’ll be Patricia R. Hass! (Updated 2010)
(BA International Relations & French): Foreign Service Officer serving in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia until summer 2011. (Updated 2010)
(BA Spanish & Government): Enjoying living in Austin, Texas with my husband Eric, my 4 year old son, Will and our black lab Jake. I’m afraid my Spanish has been limited to foreign films as of late, but we did have our son in a bilingual co-operative preschool for some time, so I had some chance to learn “kid” vocabulary I hadn’t at W&M (slide, swings, etc). (Updated 2010)
(BA Spanish): I’ve opened my own solo legal practice in Arlington Virginia, focused on guardian ad litem work for children and criminal defense work (mostly court appointed) for Spanish speaking immigrants. (Updated 2010)
(BA Spanish/Government): My family was recently profiled here:
http://www.holycrosshealth.org/newsletters_story_pregnancy.htm (Updated 2010)
(BA German): I am not using my German major very much these days, though occasionally I’ll tutor a student in German. After graduation I had a Fulbright to Germany – an awesome experience! I studied at the Teacher’s College in Freiburg. After my time there, I arranged to student teach at the American International School in Vienna, Austria through Lockhaven State University in PA. That led to my getting a full time job teaching German in the Elementary School there two years later. I worked there two years until I decided to come back to the States to begin having a family. Since 1987 I have been working as a tutor of multiple subjects including German, French and Spanish (the latter two I learned exclusively at W&M). I have traveled extensively in Europe, and now two of my children are very interested in languages. My daughter is majoring in German at Oberlin and will spend this coming year in Hamburg. My son is at W&M taking Chinese and is close to fluent in Spanish. Languages are certainly a strong interest in our family! We all love to travel and to get to know people in other cultures. (Updated 2010)
(BA French): I have my own greeting card and design business (Fast Snail Greetings & Design). One of my “specialities” is French motifs. People love the Eiffel Tower! (Updated 2010)
(BA Middle Eastern Studies): I might be starting graduate school at Georgetown next semester! (Updated 2010)
(BA Spanish): I’m currently getting my Spanish licenciatura here at the University of Valencia. I’ve lived in Valencia for 12 years and would love to help any W&M students who are here and need an American contact. (Updated 2010)
(BBA Marketing, German Studies): Married Scott Wirgau in July 2010 (Updated 2010)
(BA Middle Eastern Studies, Psychology): I am currently an M.A. Candidate in the Arab Studies program at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. (Updated 2010)
(BA French): Getting to homecoming at W&M is never easy. I am an Associate Professor of French at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington. I am also currently serving as the Chair of the Foreign Languages and Literature Department. I can only imagine all the work gone into setting up this website – good job! Have a great time at homecoming. (Updated 2010)
(BA Spanish) I received my Ph.D. in Spanish literature from Catholic University this May. I am working as an assistant professor of Spanish at Northern Virginia Community College in Alexandria. I hope to join you at Homecoming another year. (Updated 2010)
(BA Global & East Asian Studies): In the fall, Chris will be heading to Shika, Ishikawa, Japan to teach English in Junior High and Elementary schools.(Updated 2010)
(BA French): I work with several American study abroad programs in Aix-en-Provence, France. Enjoy seeing W&M students in my groups! (Updated 2010)
(BS Biology and Hispanic Studies): I’m in the process of applying to graduate school for Latin American Studies and planning on going to Brazil in January for six months. (Updated 2010)
(BA French & History): After teaching English for two years in France, I returned to the U.S. for grad school. I finished my master’s degree in 2004 and am nearly finished with the coursework for my PhD in education.
Starts: February 8, 2011 at 3:45 PM
Location: Cohen Career Center Presentation Room
Contact: Professor Jonathan Arries, Hispanic Studies, 757-221-1393, jfarri@wm.edu
Professor Ellen Mayock
Washington and Lee University
2010 Recipient of the Outstanding Faculty Award,
State Council of Higher Education of Virginia
Lecture presentation: “Higher Education Networks, Connections Among English, Spanish and TESOL”.
Reception to follow.
Sponsored by Hispanic Studies, and the William and Mary School of Education.
Location: Washington Hall 201
Dr. Robert Moynihan presents a public lecture “Moscow and Rome: Latest Developments in Vatican-Russian Relations in a Geopolitical Context.” Dr. Moynihan edits the magazine “Inside the Vatican” and has been a key player in the ongoing dialogue between Vatican and Russian Orthodox Church since 1999.
February 11, 2011, 7pm
All films will be shown at the Kimball Theater on Duke of Gloucester Street
For more information visit the Film Festival website here:
http://frenchfilm2011.blogs.wm.edu/
watch?v=z2RlDZVpT3E
Story by Leslie McCullough
Luck, chance, or fate? Maybe some combination of the three. During a summer 2002 undergraduate research trip to South America, Sarah South Parks ’03 suggested an exploratory side trip to La Plata, Argentina. The rest is history.
Sarah was finishing her junior year as a Hispanic Studies major and jumped at the chance to join her advisor, Professor Silvia Tandeciarz, and fellow student John Cipperly for a two-week research trip to Chile and Argentina, two nations emerging from brutal experiences with state terrorism. The students’ participation was made possible by a Borgenicht Foundation for Identity and Transformation Grant supporting faculty-directed student research projects.
In preparing for the trip, Professor Tandeciarz asked Sarah and John to read A Lexicon of Terror: Argentina and the Legacies of Torture by Marguerite Feitlowitz. Sarah recalls being particularly interested in a chapter about the alarming number of children, students, and faculty who “disappeared” from the university town of La Plata, Argentina, during its so-called “Dirty War” (1976-1983).
“It was a terrible and secretive time,” says Sarah. “Thousands of Argentineans were arrested, imprisoned, and declared missing. People involved with the university and education were seen as a threat by the dictatorship, and many disappeared.”
Together the group visited “memory sites” (e.g., museums, monuments, bookstores, schools, and memorials) to document and analyze the role of memory in the re-construction of Chilean and Argentinean national identities.
Sarah expressed interest in visiting the sites of memory in La Plata that she’d read about. Although only a half-hour drive from Buenos Aires, La Plata at that time represented uncharted territory.
There, while visiting a memory site at an elementary school, the group noticed a poster for the Comisión Provincial por la Memoria (Commission on Memory), a nongovernmental organization dedicated to the study and dissemination of human rights abuses committed during the Argentinean dictatorship. The commission was set up to do the very thing Tandeciarz’s team was researching. It was an incredible find.
Sarah’s research focused on the children of the disappeared in Argentina, some of whom were adopted by military families and are just coming to discover their biological identity. Working with the Commission offered access to many invaluable resources. Later, Sarah reported her research findings in an academic paper she presented at a Modern Languages and Literatures colloquium.
“When we engage in collaborative research with students, the rewards can be endless,” says Professor Tandeciarz. “It was Sarah’s leadership that got us to La Plata. If there had been no grant, there would have been no students on this trip, and we never would have made this wonderful connection.”
Since the initial connection, Tandeciarz has helped to develop a strong relationship between the Commission and the College. As a result, William and Mary students from many majors have participated in a semester study abroad program in La Plata, the only one of its kind available there to U.S. college students.
“This semester program is unique in that it offers students the opportunity to take university courses while collaborating on a variety of human rights initiatives through internships at the Comission, thus bringing William and Mary’s service learning tradition into global education,” says Professor Tandeciarz. The funding structure of the La Plata program also has made it possible for Argentinean students to come to the College for short research trips, usually conducted over spring break in collaboration with William and Mary undergraduate students.
“I never could have guessed what this trip would turn into,” says Sarah. “It is neat to think about how this program is benefiting the lives of so many other students. In my opinion, one of the College’s greatest assets is the ability to maintain an environment that allows for such strong collaborations between students and faculty.”
Since receiving her master’s degree in social work in 2006, Sarah South Parks has worked with international adoption programs and Hispanic immigrant children who had been separated and subsequently reunited with their families. She is currently working in Williamsburg with The Barker Foundation, a private adoption agency, to provide counseling to women or couples facing unplanned pregnancy.
Professor Regina Root’s scholarship and role in Latin American fashion was the recent subject of a program on “Mujeres exitosas” (Successful Women) for a culture and education channel in Colombia. Program host Angélica Romero highlighted Root’s role as president of Ixel Moda (Latin America’s fashion congress that attracts designers and academics from around the globe) and work on sustainable design practices. “Mujeres exitosas” presented an interview with Michelle Bachelet the week prior to airing the interview with Root. To see the half hour program, see http://vimeo.com/17666775 (Note: There are brief pauses between program segments.)
There are more students enrolled in foreign language courses than any other department within the Arts & Sciences at William & Mary, making the College a leader in a nationwide trend that’s sweeping across higher education in America.
According to the recent report, “Enrollments in Languages Other Than English in United States Institutions of Higher Education, Fall 2009,” released by the Modern Language Association (MLA), enrollments in languages other than English at U.S. colleges and universities have continued to grow over the past decade. They are also diversifying to include an increasingly broad range of language studies, says the report, the longest-running and most comprehensive analysis of the study of languages in higher education.
“The majority of students are not taking language courses because of the foreign language proficiency requirement, they’re taking language courses because of their interest in the particular subject matter, future career goals or their desire to learn another language,” said Professor Silvia Tandeciarz, chair of modern languages and literatures.
The new survey found that the study of Arabic registered the largest percentage of growth since 2006, with course enrollments growing by 46.3 percent. Chinese and Japanese enrollments also increased significantly, up 18.4 percent and 10.3 percent, respectively.
Tandeciarz, who teaches Hispanic Studies courses, said William & Mary also has seen tremendous enrollment increases in those language areas. Departmental data shows that since 2005, enrollments in introductory Chinese increased by 27 percent and Arabic by 25 percent. Overall, the department has seen an 8 percent increase in lower-level courses, or an additional 155 students in the classroom.
Professor Rachel DiNitto, associate chair for educational policy for modern languages and literatures, said enrollments had increased so vastly “that a few years ago, we had one year in which there wasn’t a single seat open for incoming freshmen in any introductory language class in the whole department.”
Since then, the department has started enrollment management and now saves half the seats in every introductory language course for freshmen. They also added additional course sections to relieve some of the enrollment pressures, she said.
“The biggest demand is in 101 and 102,” said DiNitto, who also teaches courses in Japanese. “And, part of that is just a function of the numbers themselves because all languages have an attrition process.”
But with 75 percent of students coming to William & Mary having already met the foreign language proficiency requirement, Tandeciarz says there’s been a clear shift in the recognition of language and its importance as we transition into the 21st century.
“Students are not taking language courses because they need to or because they have to,” she said. “They’re doing it because they want to.”
Historically, Tandeciarz says there’s always been pressure to teach additional languages, mainly because of rising economies and a globally driven market.
“The university has to shift and respond to pressures from social movements, pressures from a changing world, so the academy today isn’t what the academy was 100 years ago,” said Tandeciarz. “We’re constantly shifting, re-thinking ourselves, reinventing what we do in light of what’s happening around us.”
And in today’s global climate students are learning more than one new language while in college. DiNitto said the department is tracking another new trend: dual languaging in either Chinese and Japanese or Chinese and Arabic.
“The dual language in Japanese and Chinese is a natural connection, especially because of the writing systems,” said DiNitto. “But Arabic and Chinese are completely different. China is becoming the world’s strongest economy and the government needs people who can speak Arabic, so to a certain extent students are covering their bases, but that’s a real commitment to study those two languages. It’s not just a passing fancy.”
Both professors agree that the main appeal of dual languages is that students have a broader scope and a wider view of a more globally connected world. One way to streamline the two would be for students to take the newly proposed major in Asian and Middle East Studies, combining Middle Eastern Studies with East Asian Studies and incorporating South Asian Studies. During fall 2010, the Educational Policy Committee voted to approve such a major, which is slated to go before a vote by the Faculty of Arts & Sciences this spring.
“Along with the study of the major languages of the region, the proposed Asian and Middle East Studies major will include courses on history, politics, religion, literature, fine and media arts, and expressive and ritual culture,” said Teresa Longo, dean for educational policy. “The interdisciplinary components of the curriculum are meant to provide students with a specialized knowledge of a vital region within Asia and to introduce them to cross-regional practices.”
While institutions are still figuring out how to balance the language needs of their students, they’re also experiencing another change on the language forefront: what type of student can they expect to enroll in language courses?
“For many years, the students who studied Japanese and Chinese were traditionally East Asian Studies majors,” said DiNitto. “Now, we’re getting more and more students who are business majors, chemistry majors, and majors from academic fields across campus. And they’re coming at language from a very different angle.”
DiNitto attributes the influx of students from various demographics and academic fields to an internationalized world that continues to diversify, and students who want to be prepared for global citizenship.
“Back in the 1980s, students got a business degree and regardless where you went, they just hired a translator and that was considered sufficient,” she said. “It’s no longer sufficient anymore, nor is it desirable.”
At William & Mary, Japanese enrollments in upper-level courses have increased 24 percent over the last five years, according to departmental data. The program has split the third-year class into two sections to accommodate the increasing number of freshmen entering with advanced language skills. Chinese has registered almost a 50 percent increase for its upper-level courses and now offers two sections of third and fourth year courses.
“The increases in upper-level courses are in response to high schools teaching those languages more regularly in comparison to the traditional languages taught such as French, German and Spanish,” said DiNitto.
It’s hard to imagine the future without considering the past: William & Mary is the first and oldest Modern Languages and Literatures Department in the nation. Its beginnings can be traced to a professorship established by Thomas Jefferson in 1777, said Tandeciarz.
“It’s challenging to stay on top and figure out what the needs are and how to best address them,” she said. “But, we recognize that it’s a shifting landscape and as we think about training our students for a more globally interconnected world, having these language skills is extremely important.”
One thing is for sure: the study of a language is just one small piece that is necessary when looking at our world.
“What students are really getting is a deep cultural understanding that is only available to them if they can read what people living in those parts of the world are writing, understand what they are saying, and identify with how they’re representing themselves and the issues they face,” said Tandeciarz. “It’s much more about cross cultural understanding and not simply that language skill – learning the language is really a first step, a tool for the work that we do.”
‘Couture & Consensus: Fashion and Politics in Postcolonial Argentina’ by Regina A. Root
Story By Lillian Stevens
Couture & Consensus, a new book by Regina Root, offers a history of fashion and its influence on the political climate following Argentina’s revolution of independence in 1810. In her book, Root explains how dress served as a critical expression of political agency and citizenship during the struggle toward a new Argentine nation.
The result of an extensive archival study that took several years to complete, Couture & Consensus: Fashion and Politics in Postcolonial Argentina reveals how politics merged with dress to encourage creativity and (depending on the wearer’s ideology) to enforce or protest authoritarian practices.
“This book maps the search for a collective identity, or consensus, through material culture. At a time when the region was at war and the idea of an Argentine nation still seemed a dream, fashion became a creative language through which to engage the nation-building project,” says Root, Class of 1963 Term Distinguished Associate Professor of Modern Languages and Literatures.
There are five chapters, beginning with “Uniform Consensus” in which Root describes the often theatrical manifestations of conformity and rebellion. Root explains the divide between the Argentine Federalists (those who pledged loyalty to Juan Manuel de Rosas, an authoritarian leader) and the Unitarians who opposed the Rosas regime. Rosas, she writes, actually mandated a uniform for civilians in the province of Buenos Aires, while an 1832 decree established crimson as the “color of faith” for the Argentine federation. Unitarians wore green or light blue—when they could get away with it, Root says. When such colors were outlawed, Unitarians risked death when inserting political messages into their top hats.
The second chapter, “Dressed to Kill,” is about female complicity during the push for independence from Spain. Here, Root gives voice and presence to the many nameless and overlooked women who participated actively in the war effort—women who constructed uniforms and who sometimes even donned them in order to fight during the various (ultimately unsuccessful) British invasions of Buenos Aires.
Then comes “Fashion as Presence,” the third chapter, which explores the meaning of exaggerated dress—from oversized skirts to giant hair combs called peinetones—in the quest for female emancipation. Peinetones, usually made of tortoiseshell and reaching one yard square, were worn by women of the 1820s and 1830s to distance themselves visually from the fashions and customs of Spain. By wearing massive skirts and intimidating headpieces, women also commanded a space of their own, effectively asserting their presence in public, Root says. These emblems of Argentine identity sometimes incorporated political slogans or patriotic motifs. “They definitely called into question the political vanity of 19th-century male leaders who had fought Spanish oppression, but then denied women their emancipation,” she said.
In the fourth chapter, “Fashion Writing,” Root demonstrates how easy it was for authors to elude authorities by masquerading their politics under the guise of entertainment prose. As a result, it became possible in postcolonial Argentina to regain control of the body politic by planting urban, democratic ideals within the pages of fashion magazines. In this chapter, Root recounts the liberating qualities of fashion at this pivotal moment of national reorganization and modernization.
The final chapter is titled “Searching for Female Emancipation.” Root gives voice to the political foothold women were gradually gaining. While revolutionary men gained political footing under the guise of writing articles about fashion, it was the women who felt empowered by their ability to finally speak their minds. Root calls on everything from storylines of novels to the history of the magazines to prove this point.
In the book’s epilogue, Root discusses how the tradition of mixing fashion with politics continues in modern-day Argentina. Among the examples she cites are the shawls of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. These are the mothers of los desaparecidos—the thousands of people who “disappeared” during Argentina’s Dirty War promulgated 1976-83 by the Videla administration. “One usually recognizes a Mother of the Plaza de Mayo by the white shawl that she wears, the name of her beloved child cross-stitched in blue thread on the back corner,” Root writes.
Couture & Consensus was published by University of Minnesota Press this past June, the text is intended for a scholarly audience but Root says that it will appeal to a broad range of disciplines.
By invitation of the German Studies Section of Modern Languages and Literatures, Professor Sander Gilman, Distinguished Professor of the Liberal Arts and Sciences and Professor of Psychiatry at Emory University, was a guest at the College of William & Mary Wednesday, November 17th.
Professor Gilman gave a more informal talk with the title “Whose Body Is It Anyway? Sexual Transformation in Germany (1890-1933)” and a more formal lecture: “From the Nose Job to the Face Transplant: A History of the Authentic Face.” Both events took place in Washington Hall, and were attended by students and faculty from numerous disciplines and programs.
Sander Gilman is the author of over forty books and 200 articles, including: Contemporary Medicine: Biological Facts and Fiction; Jewish Self-Hatred; Fat: A Cultural History of Obesity; Difference and Pathology: Stereotypes of Sexuality, Race, and Madness; Disease and Representation: Images of Illness from Madness to AIDS; Freud, Race, and Gender; Inscribing the Other; The Jew‘s Body; Franz Kafka: The Jewish Patient and, more recently, Creating Beauty to Cure the Soul: Race and Psychology in the Shaping of Aesthetic Surgery, Jewish Frontiers: Essays on Bodies, Histories, and Identities and The Fortunes of the Humanities: Teaching the Humanities in the New Millennium.
Sander Gilman’s visit was made possible by generous contributions from Arts and Sciences, The Charles Center, The Programs in Literary and Cultural Studies and Jewish Studies, the Departments of Modern Languages and Literatures, Religious Studies, English, History, and Psychology.
By Erin Zagursky
Over the past decade, William & Mary’s students and alumni have been very successful in obtaining Fulbright Scholarships to teach and study in countries around the world. This year alone, a record 13 students and alumni were selected.
But the students who have obtained the highly competitive scholarships did not get there on their own. Much of their success is owed to the support and opportunities offered to them by the College’s faculty and staff members, who work tirelessly with students to prepare them for the scholarships.
One of those faculty members is Bruce Campbell, an associate professor of German and associate chair of faculty affairs in the modern languages & literatures department.
“While many William & Mary faculty members take an active interest in promoting the Fulbright program to their students and mentoring them through the process, Bruce has really made it a mission to increase the number of Fulbrighters we send to Germany and Austria,” said Lisa Grimes, William & Mary Fulbright program advisor. “The proof of his success is in the numbers: four of our students are currently finishing up a year in Austria or Germany, and in the fall we’re sending four students to teach English, one to conduct research, and one student is an alternate for a position in Germany. No other country has nearly that many Fulbright recipients or applications.”
Campbell said that he—along with colleagues—have made a conscious effort over the past decade to assist students in applying for Fulbrights or other academic honors. That help begins with letting the students know what opportunities are available to them as soon as possible in their college career.
He was also quick to note that the College’s Fulbright success begins with its students.
“We don’t coach the students, we don’t write things for them—the students are doing it on their own. We’re just there every step of the way,” Campbell said.
And when those students succeed—as they have done for a decade now—the professors celebrate, too. Campbell, who was an English teaching assistant in Germany himself, knows what it can do for a student’s life and career.
