Additional Fulbright Opportunity for this year!

Fulbright has added 76 additional Brazil ETA placements for this year. A special open application period will be held from May 2 to July 14, 2017.  The deadline is Friday, July 14 at 5:00 pm Eastern Time.

To be eligible, applicants must be a U.S. citizen and hold a bachelor’s degree by July 14, 2017.  Additional requirements/preferences for this program include:

  • Must available for the full grant term: mid-February to November, 2018.
  • Cannot be residing in Brazil for more than three months in the 12 months prior to the grant start. Exception can be made for language immersion program enrollment.
  • Proficiency in a Romance language at the intermediate level (equivalent to 2-years college level study) is required at the time of application.
  • Experience working in an educational environment, specifically with classroom teaching or leadership is strongly preferred.

For more details, please refer to the Brazil Country Description: http://us.fulbrightonline.org/countries/selectedprogram/339

If you are interested, please contact Kate Smith, the Fulbright Program Advisor at Wesleyan University at fellowships@wesleyan.edu.

To International Students: Message from Janice Watson and Travel Plans

To International Students in the Class of 2017:

In anticipation of the bad weather predicted for Friday and the possibility that Ms. Watson may not make it to campus, she will be on campus tonight until 6pm to endorse I-20s and provide travel letters. 

 Please send Ms. Watson an email at jwatson@wesleyan.edu to request your letter.

Janice D. Watson, Coordinator, International Student Services/PDSO

 

 

 

Why Foreign Language Study is a Good Idea for Every Student

If you are a senior who has engaged with foreign-language study while at Wesleyan, the rationale below will help you explain to prospective employers the skills you have gained through such a course of study.

Why Foreign-Language Study is a Good Idea for Every Student  

We assume if you have reasons to learn a particular language (to study, work, travel, or live abroad or for resources not fully available in English translation), you already know why it is important. Here are reasons to study any language besides English or whatever you regard as your native language:

  1. Many employers, professional schools, and graduate schools see serious study of a second language (potentially, a double-major) as evidence that you can (a) put yourself more easily in others’ (colleagues’, clients’) shoes and (b) communicate more effectively even in English.
  2. You will never know your own language and culture more deeply than by studying another–by looking at it from the outside. Learning to thrive with the unfamiliar is often linked to creativity in many intellectual and professional contexts.
  3. Language learning teaches you to think more clearly and sharpens your brain’s ability to make sense of the world.
  4. Deep study of another culture through its language brings home how much of value will never be made available in English.
  5. Puzzling out another language and culture will help you understand (and empathize with) the difficulties of non-anglophone immigrants, colleagues, clients, and travelers in the U.S., even if you never leave American shores.
  6. Learning another language well makes it easier to learn any language in the future. Even if you never need this, the experience–especially if you study abroad–will make you far more confident in your ability to face any intellectual or professional challenge.  
  7. Foreign-language courses fit easily into study plans: offered on highly varied schedules, they provide a stimulating (and fun!) break from problem-set driven, heavy-reading or arts courses.

Wesleyan offers:

Arabic language and culture: http://www.wesleyan.edu/academics/faculty/aaissa/profile.html

American Sign Language: http://www.wesleyan.edu/lctls/courses.html

Classics (Greek and Latin): http://wesleyan.edu/classics/

East Asian Studies (Chinese, Japanese, Korean): http://wesleyan.edu/ceas/

German studies: http://wesleyan.edu/german/

Hebrew language and culture: http://www.wesleyan.edu/academics/faculty/dkatz01/profile.html

Romance Languages & Literatures (French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish): http://wesleyan.edu/romance/

Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies program: http://wesleyan.edu/russian/

Any other language: http://www.wesleyan.edu/lctls/silp.html

Do not hesitate to contact any faculty teaching these above language(s).

 

“Ukrainian Sheriffs” Screening–Dec. 6 at 7:30 p.m.

You are invited to a screening of an Oscar longlisted Ukrainian feature documentary ‘Ukrainian Sheriffs’. Film director Roman Bondarchuk and producer Darya Averchenko will present the film and will be available for Q&A after the screening.  It is a very special film that is currently getting the best reviews in top American film media.

Tuesday, December 6, 7:30pm       Powell Family Cinema

College of Film and the Moving Image

FREE

The screening is co-sponsored by College of Film and the Moving Image with, Office of the Dean of Arts and Humanities, Department of Russian and Eastern European Studies, The Allbritton Center for the Study of Public Life, The Department of Government, and Wesleyan’s Center for the Arts.

“Ukrainian Sheriffs” got the Special Jury Prize in the main competition of IDFA – 2015 (A+). The International documentary film festival in Amsterdam well-known as central documentary world forum and called ‘documentary Cannes’.  The festival record of the movie is great: it was screened at more than 40 festivals from South Korea to Toronto and continues to travel worldwide. TV-premier was on ZDF/ARTE, on Saturday prime-time, in March 2016. ARTE has coverage of 120,000,000 viewers in total.

Ukrainian Sheriffs is a real life story about two local sheriffs and the villagers of a remote village near Crimea, Stara Zburievka. Following the sheriffs on their everyday duties, the story gives us a look beyond the war and the ongoing political events inside the everyday life of the villagers, foregrounding the tension between personal survival and political justice. What was meant to be a film about a few people from the Ukrainian countryside and their everyday struggles, portrays the faith of a whole nation during the turning period in its history.

Here you’ll find trailer of the movie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u81rnJG6ym4

Following this links you’ll find news about the movie and interview with film-director Roman Bondarchuk:

http://www.screendaily.com/reviews/ukrainian-sheriffs-review/5097445.article?blocktitle=REVIEWS&contentID=40296

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/ukrainian-sheriffs-idfa-review-846198

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/3406/

http://www.vimooz.com/2016/09/10/ukrainian-sheriffs-ukraine-2017-oscars/

 

Women’s Bandura Ensemble — Sat., 11/19, 6 p.m.

Go to the Memorial Chapel on Saturday  at 6:00PM for the premier performance of the

Women’s Bandura Ensemble of North America.

It will be an extraordinary and moving concert of singing and instrumental music.

The bandura has long been the voice and soul of Ukraine, its strings echoing the nation’s turbulent history.

Structurally, the bandura is similar to the lute and the harp, and usually has around 60 strings.  Please join us!

Book Talk and -Signing: “The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem: Intergenerational Tension, Forbidden Love & Questions of Identity in 20th Century Israel –11/7 at 8 p.m.

The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem: Intergenerational Tension, Forbidden Love and Questions of Identity in 20th Century Israel will conclude the series Contemporary Israeli Voices, 2016. Sarit Yisha-Levi’s first novel The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem, became a best seller in Israel, received the Publisher’s Association’s Gold and Platinum Prizes in 2014 as well as the Steimatzky Prize for the best-selling book of the year (2014). Recently, it was also made into a feature film. The author’s Sephardic family living in Jerusalem for seven generations, inspired this novel.

Here is a short description taken from the Institute for the translation of Hebrew Literature. http://www.ithl.org.il/page_15448

This Israeli bestseller is a multi-generational saga of Jerusalem, extending from the early 20th century when the Turks ruled Palestine, through the years of the British Mandate and the establishment of the State of Israel, to the early 1970s. It is the story of the Ermoza family, respected Sephardic Jews who own a delicatessen in the Jerusalem market. The narrator is Gabriela, the wild, rebellious daughter of Luna, known as “The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem.” Gabriela gradually reveals the family secrets and lies, but mainly the inner strengths that family members have to summon in order to overcome the ups and downs of life along the way.

The novel received enthusiastic reviews such as:

Exquisitely rich in history and detail… Poignant and intriguing book.  Historical Novel Society

Fans of Gabriel Garcia Marquez will find much to love in “The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem.”  The narrative is lush and rife with scandalous secrets of a passionately opinionated family that might find it easier to free themselves from the clutches of war, than from the Ermoza curse inflicted upon them. The Jewish Journal

Passion and the grand sweep of history permeate this dazzling you-cannot-put-it-down novel about four generations of astonishing women–and the men in their family who just might be cursed by love. So rich and vibrant, that every page seems to virtually breathe.  Author Caroline Leavitt 

The event will take place on Monday, November 7 at 8PM at Russell House. All are welcome. A reception and book signing will follow.

Sponsored by the Center for Jewish Studies

Refugee Crisis Panel #2 — 2/17, 7 p.m.

You are cordially invited to the second of three panels on the current refugee crisis, sponsored by the Allbritton Center and the Office of the President, this Wednesday, 2/17, 7PM in PAC 001:

The Refugee Experience

Steve Poellot, Legal Director, International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP)

Mohammed Kadalah, UConn Department of Literature, Cultures & Languages; recently granted asylum after fleeing Syria in 2011

Baselieus Zeno, Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at University of Massachusetts/Amherst; Syrian refugee.

Moderator: Victoria Smolkin-Rothrock, Wesleyan Assistant Professor of History

 

Information Sessions for International Students with an F-1 Visa

Below are programs scheduled by the Office of International Student Affairs and the Wesleyan Career Center to get information to the international student community at Wesleyan about Optional Practical Training (OPT) and Curricular Practical Training (CPT),  internships and employment.

Feb. 11, OPT: Get a Job in the US

https://www.myinterfase.com/wesleyan/event_view.aspx?token=9lGdUzQiKi6FsBg7ECaPZg%3d%3d

Feb. 16, Working After Wes: Options for International Students

https://www.myinterfase.com/wesleyan/event_view.aspx?token=ZANaa0BEzaYazcXZwDG9Fw%3d%3d

Feb. 23, CPT: Internship Search for International Students

https://www.myinterfase.com/wesleyan/event_view.aspx?token=JeTEctsaFhU4RRjKT9V14g%3d%3d

March 1, Internships with US Companies

https://www.myinterfase.com/wesleyan/event_view.aspx?token=JKEIpkJwFK+uRHhOO3N3Tg%3d%3d

Please contact Janice Watson, Coordinator of International Student Services, with any questions.