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Institute to illustrate immigrant resettlement in Harrisonburg
he Institute for Creative Inquiry in the College of Visual and Performing Arts received a $30,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to capture the resettlement experiences of 10 immigrant families in Harrisonburg through a five-week collaboration with acclaimed photographer Wendy Ewald. “The support of the NEA will enable us to connect this world-class artist with the Harrisonburg community at a scope and scale that would not have been possible otherwise,” said Daniel Robinson, associate director of ICI. “It shows a real commitment to the positively transformative power of art.” For more than 50 years, Ewald, whose career has been focused on portraiture and social justice, has worked with children and marginalized communities worldwide, enabling them to illuminate their experiences to larger audiences. Ewald teaches her collaborators to use cameras to record themselves, their families and their communities. She also takes photographs within these communities and asks collaborators to mark or write on her images, challenging the distinction between The re-release subject and creator. of photographer Wendy Ewald’s ICI has partnered with Church World book Portraits Service, a faith-based nonprofit resettleand Dreams ment organization, to develop the immigrant (2020) includes resettlement project and to identify and supa self portrait of port participating families, who will be drawn Janet Stallard on the cover (right). from speakers of the city’s most prevalent for-
Pact provides a head start on graduate school
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new program will enable undergraduate computer science students at JMU to apply early and earn graduate credits in master’s degree programs at the Virginia Tech Innovation Campus in Northern Virginia
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eign languages, including Spanish, Arabic, Kurdish, Tigrinya and Swahili. The families will range from well-established to recent arrivals in order to explore how different generations have experienced the challenges of resettlement. The co-created works will be the focus of a wide range of public programming beginning in Fall 2021.
and the Blacksburg campus. The goal is to create a more robust graduate program with students equipped to become leaders in the field. Participants will be on the path to secure graduate admission to Virginia Tech as soon as the spring of their junior year. For many, the opportunity could mean their graduate education coursework may only take up to one additional year. A key goal of the partnership is to
— Jen Kulju (’04M)
address the state’s Tech Talent Investment Program. JMU and other universities have committed to graduate approximately 31,000 new computer science graduates over 20 years to help fill a critical workforce need in Virginia. “This new partnership is a wonderful opportunity for our JMU students,” said Sharon Simmons, head of the Department of Computer Science. “They can complete their CS Bachelor of Science degree at JMU and trans-
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