Center for International Education - Annual Report 2022

Annual Report 2022

THE CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION

Letter from the Director

Looking back at 2021-22, one feels a mix of emotions—surprise, relief, tremendous satisfaction…disbelief. The year began with the brooding omnipresence of COVID looming everywhere. By year’s end, the campus was essentially back to normal. The campus was open, classes were in classrooms, Spring term abroad went…abroad. It was wonderful. In many ways, the Center for International Education simply picked up where we left off.

• Our academic year study abroad numbers returned almost to pre-pandemic levels.

• All of our international students were able to get to campus with little or no COVID complications.

• We welcomed two Gunn scholars.

• Alas, we bid farewell to John Gunn

• We sent nearly a record number of students and faculty abroad for spring term.

• We hosted or co-hosted several speakers and international visitors

This makes for truly exciting times on campus and in the Center. Our international student population continues to grow thanks to the incredible efforts of our Admissions team. Hunter Swanson, our international student and scholar adviser continued to tend to all of our international community members through innovative programming in collaboration with student affairs. Meanwhile, the number of students going abroad in the summer to study, undertake research, or pursue internships also continues to rise as Cindy Irby works with increasing numbers of students each year.

Looking back, it is rewarding to be able to say that 2022 was the best-prepared, best-managed, most secure Spring term ever. The university contracted with International SOS to provide 24/7 security, logistical, and medical support for our faculty, students and staff abroad. Our travelers had constant, instantaneous access to live support. Thanks to that access, the fantastic work of our Spring Term Coordinator, Jillian Murphy, and the tremendous efforts of our Spring term faculty, we managed all cases of exposure, quarantine, and simple inconvenience due to COVID during Spring.

On a bittersweet note, we experienced staffing changes as we said good-bye to Patrick Sheridan, our coordinator as he returned to Instructional Technology. But, we happily welcomed Erin Weyen who stepped into Patrick’s shoes in December.

So as you look through this annual report, you will clearly detect a sense of happily getting back to normal. As we turn to 2022-23, we look forward to welcoming another large class of international students, sending even more abroad, and hosting a series of speakers on climate change and global politics.

Credits:

Writers: Mark Rush, Erica Turman, Dick Kuettner, W&L News Office

Layout: Billy Chase

Front Cover: Shannon Tozier, ’25

Inside Back Cover: Elizabeth Oliver, Kevin Remington

Back Cover: Top left: STA – Slavery and Colonialism in the African Diaspora photo: Professor Mohamed Kamara

Top Right: STA – Democratic Community in Italy: Food, Shelter, Space, Voice photo: David Galvez ’22

Middle Left: STA – Seville and the Foundations of Spanish Civilization photo: Professor Matthew Bailey

Middle Right: STA – Rome: The Eternal City photo: Professor Caleb Dance

Bottom: Democratic Community in Italy: Food, Shelter, Space, Voice photo: David Galvez ’22

International Day of Peace

21 September is the annual International Day of Peace. In 2022, the CIE sponsored an exhibition of the work of Kevin Remington, W&L’s Manager of Photography and Digital Collections. The photos are from his 2020 visit to the Oda Foundation in Nepal that was founded by W&L Alumnus Jon Christopher ’09. The striking photos of residents of the Karnali zone of Nepal are displayed in the second floor of the Ruscio Center for Global Learning.

World Language Teaching Assistants

Each year, the university hosts several native language speakers from around the world to assist students and faculty. These “WLTA”s literally bring the world to our classrooms and campus as they engage in conversation sessions, cultural events, and day to day classroom activity. W&L also assists the WLTAs with their professional development as they take classes on pedagogy and participate in professional meetings.

A highlight of the year is attendance at the annual Southern Conference on Language Teaching (SCOLT). Professor Dick Kuettner (Global Discovery Laboratories, Romance Languages, and Education Studies) organizes this event each year.

At SCOLT, the TAs participate in a host of pedagogical workshops and seminars such as this year’s keynote workshop, “High-Leverage Teaching Practices Lead the Way.” ACTFL (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) sponsored the intense workshop, which was led by language acquisition theorist and scholar Eileen Glisan, co-author of Teacher’s Handbook, Contextualized Language Instruction. While students attended the workshop, Kuettner undertook SCOLT award committee work and interviewing candidates for Teacher of the Year.

During and after the conference, the TAs expressed their appreciation for being able to attend and shared comments such as, “I am very grateful we got to spend the weekend all together, meet great educators from different parts of the world, and learn from their expertise.” In 2022-23, W&L will welcome back Kei Yamaguchi and Qiong Wu as we look forward to five new TAs in Arabic, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and German.

Zineb Meljane (Arabic), Ambre Le Curieux-Belfond (French), Anderson Barbosa (Portuguese), Rebecca Scheibel (German), Kei Yamaguchi (Japanese), Qiong Wu( Chinese) Dani Quiroz (Spanish)

Insights: Dani Quiroz

Dani Quiroz came to W&L from Argentina in 2020 and spent two years working as the Spanish TA remotely and on campus. As a result of her extended stay, we asked for her impressions about teaching in the USA, W&L, meeting the challenges posed by COVID, and her professional plans.

Can you talk about how your experience went at W&L as you shifted from working online to working in person?

I am grateful to have had both experiences. I learned a lot about online teaching and learning during my first year. While the Spanish class with which I assisted was in-person most of the time, we shifted to online teaching during the winter. I had to plan lessons for both in-person and online sessions, and at times, plans had to be changed or adapted rather quickly. While this was not an ideal situation for anyone, it taught me to be flexible and creative. While teaching online had its benefits, teaching in person was extremely rewarding. It was fantastic to be back in the classroom with students talking face to face among themselves and with their instructors. There was a wider variety of activities I could plan and I believe students enjoyed them as much as I did.

Please talk a bit about your work with Dick Kuettner in the Virginia Governor’s World Language Academies in Summer 2022.

When I look back at my time at W&L, I feel humble and lucky. After working as a Teaching Assistant for two years, I had the chance to teach for the World Language Academies. This was my first time working at an immersion program, and I was fascinated with watching students’ improvement and interest in learning languages. The three-week total immersion program was a bit overwhelming at times for students and staff alike, yet it was also an incredibly rewarding experience. One of the things I enjoyed the most was watching students’ trust in their own language skills grow. They were very timid at the beginning but towards the second week of the program, they would talk in Spanish non-stop! It was wonderful. Another thing I extremely enjoyed was being able to teach Italian. When I got this opportunity in 2020, I never thought I would also teach Italian, but I am extremely happy I did it because it confirmed my love for languages and teaching languages.

What are your professional plans?

The experience as a TA teaching Spanish and at the Academies teaching Italian, coupled with my prior

experience teaching English in Argentina, made it clear to me that I love teaching languages. I look forward to keep learning languages and teaching methodologies. I am looking into possibilities right now and I am hopeful for what the future holds.

What are your impressions about the USA?

You lived in the small town of Lexington. But you travelled to other cities/parts of the country. What would you tell your friends back in Argentina that they probably don’t know from the news, etc.?

People might think they know about the US because of movies, books, and TV shows—I thought I knew a lot because I also studied the US a lot at university. Yet I was still surprised by so many things. One thing is how many people love the outdoors here. The Outing Club and W&L and the activities they organized have motivated me to be more outdoorsy and I am looking forward to also motivate my friends in Argentina to go outdoors and get to know wonderful places in our city. I also loved going to the supermarket here! There are so many interesting types of food. In the big cities I visited, like Denver and especially New York, I was surprised to hear people from all over the world. I LOVED hearing people talk in different languages: Italian to my left, French to my right, even languages I did not recognize but would have loved to understand. I felt connected to the rest of the world.

Other things I enjoyed were people’s fascination for holidays. Decorating and preparing for holidays like Halloween and Thanksgiving is a wonderful thing! Even months before the holiday people start preparing for it; again, going to the shops or stores is even as important as the holiday itself! Also, especially during these days, people were extremely kind and welcoming.

Closing thoughts?

I just want to thank Washington and Lee and ALL the people that made my experience here the best one possible. Even during difficult times such as the pandemic, everyone went beyond themselves to make sure I was enjoying this cultural experience. I will be forever grateful to everyone!

PORTRAIT OF A VILLAGE, UKRAINE

On April 28 in Northen Auditorium, W&L hosted a public lecture titled “Portrait of a Village, Ukraine,” by Lida and Mišo Suchý. The lecture complemented a photography exhibition of the same name in Leyburn Library.

Lida Suchý is an award-winning photographer, and for more than 25 years, she has captured communities primarily through portraiture. As a Fulbright Scholar and Guggenheim Fellow art photographer, her work has focused on Ukraine. She’s also a first-generation American and the daughter of Ukrainian refugees. She earned her master’s degree from the Yale University School of Art. She has taught master workshops in the United States, Italy and Ukraine. Her photographs are in public collections at the Brooklyn Museum, the Eastman Museum Rochester in New York, Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art and the Ivan Franko Museum in Kryvorivnya, Ukraine.

Portrait of a UkraineVillage,

Mišo Suchý, an associate professor in the School of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University, where he teaches film, is originally from Czechoslovakia. He works with both still and moving images; photography and film often intersect and complement one another in his creative work.

Mišo began the lecture with a cut from a new music video that Pink Floyd created in support of the Ukrainian resistance. He then turned to discuss the contemporary context of life there under wartime circumstances. Lida then discussed poignant aspects of her experience photographing the village of Kryvorivnya in Ukraine.

Lida Suchý began the project that culminated in part of the collection currently displayed at W&L in the early 1990s, not long after the Soviet Union collapsed. “I photograph mostly with a large 8x10-inch view camera,” said Suchý. “Photographing with this cumbersome tool is a slow and somewhat tedious process. It requires patience on both sides of the lens. The portrait sessions are meeting points between the people in front of the camera and the photographer on the other side.”

In a 2016 New York Times article about her photographs, Lida Suchý said the following about Ukraine: “Most of the news coming from Ukraine focuses on the war, the violence, the destruction and extreme problems that are stereotyped. I wanted to show the everyday life of ordinary people. I really feel a kinship with them. I would like to transfer, if possible, that sense of touch, that sense of closeness that I feel with the people.”

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine earlier this year, Lida Suchý contacted W&L President Will Dudley to propose an on-campus exhibit of her work documenting a village community in Ukraine. The university’s Center for International Education, the Museums at W&L and the University Library subsequently collaborated to coordinate the exhibition.

The Suchýs are the parents of current W&L student and Johnson Scholar Marko Suchý ’24.

George Packer: LAST BEST HOPE

George Packer, staff writer for The Atlantic and author of “The Unwinding” and “Last Best Hope,” spoke in the University Chapel on Thursday, February 3. He was joined on stage by Robert Strong, William Lyne Wilson Professor of Politics with whom he engaged in a dialogue about the assessment of American politics he makes in “Last, Best Hope.”

Packer is the 2019 recipient of the Hitchens Prize, which is given in memory of the late Christopher Hitchens to a journalist or author who demonstrates a deep commitment to the pursuit of truth and free expression, without concern for professional or personal consequences. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow and a Holtzbrinck Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin.

“Packer is a journalist and author with a wide range of interests and a sharp eye for telling details,” said Strong. “When Lincoln called America the world’s ‘last best hope’ for democracy,the republic was in the midst of its greatest constitutional crisis. Today there is a new crisis in American political life, and Packer helps us see where it came from and what we need to do next.” In “Last Best Hope,” Packer delves into how Americans of all backgrounds define freedom, and how we can use the underlying passion for equality to lead us toward a more unified, progressive nation.

Prior to his public talk, Packer spent midday in a seminar with a group of students who had read “Last Best Hope.” They offered commentary and criticism from a variety of perspectives. Packer welcomed the opportunity to engage the students and was tremendously impressed by their insights. This was especially so for the thoughts offered by several international students who compared his analysis of the pathologies of American society to those in their home countries.

UWC Davis students 2021-22.

Diwali celebration.

Scenes from Lunar New Year celebration.

W&L welcomes the world indeed! Along with scenes from international celebrations, the colored countries on this map indicate the homes of our international students.

WELCOMES THE WORLD

Diwali celebration.

QUICK FACTS

2021-2022

STUDY ABROAD: 75

SPRING TERM ABROAD: 253 STUDENTS

SUMMER: 19

INTERNATIONAL STUDENT NUMBERS

112 INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS FROM 45 COUNTRIES

International student countries:

AFGHANISTAN

ARGENTINA

AUSTRALIA

AUSTRIA

BANGLADESH

BELARUS

BOSNIA & HERZEGOVINA

BRAZIL

BULGARIA

CANADA

CHINA

COLOMBIA

CONGO

COSTA RICA

EGYPT

ETHIOPIA

FRANCE

GEORGIA

GERMAN FED REP

GREECE

HONDURAS

HONG KONG

INDIA

ITALY

JAPAN

KENYA

LITHUANIA

MOROCCO

NEPAL

NIGERIA

PAKISTAN

PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES

PERU

REP OF KOREA-SOUTH

REPUBLIC OF TANZANIA

RUSSIA

RWANDA

SERBIA & MONTENEGRO

SINGAPORE

SPAIN

UNIT REP OF CAMEROON

UNITED KINGDOM

VIETNAM

ZAMBIA

ZIMBABWE

Incoming Class Fall of ’26

46 students from 29 countries:

BANGLADESH

BHUTAN

CANADA

CHILE

CHINA

ECUADOR

EGYPT

EL SALVADOR

ETHIOPIA

GEORGIA

GREECE

HONG KONG S.A.R.

INDIA

IRAN

IRAQ

JAMAICA

LATVIA

LEBANON

MEXICO

NEPAL

PAKISTAN

PAKISTAN

POLAND

RWANDA

SOUTH KOREA

SPAIN

TANZANIA

UKRAINE

VIETNAM

Gunn Scholars 2021-22

In 2021-22, W&L hosted two Gunn scholars. Ahmad Arman, a native of Afghanistan, came to us from the American University in Central Asia. Danai Manta, a native of Greece, joined us from the University of Cyprus. Normally, the university hosts one scholar per year. But, COVID made it impossible for Ahmad to travel to the USA for 2020-21. So, we were thrilled that he was able to reorganize his course of study and join us in 2021-22.

It was an unusual year because both Gunn scholars applied successfully to transfer to W&L. Ahmad will complete a degree in Politics in 2023 while Danai is pursuing a degree in Cognitive and Behavioral Science. She will graduate in 2024.

While this was an exciting year for the Gunn scholarship program, it was bittersweet as the university bid farewell to John Gunn in October at the age of 97. John’s love for and impact on the university were profound. A member of the class of 1945, John served on the W&L faculty from 1957-1994.

In 2000, Alfred Harrison, an exchange student during Gunn’s first year at W&L, established The John M. Gunn International Scholarship that brings international students of exceptional academic,

personal and professional promise to W&L to study for one year. In addition to the international scholarship, Gunn has inspired several other significant gifts. An endowment that supports an economics award in his name was established by former students shortly after his retirement. Another supports new course development, curriculum innovation and faculty professional development in the Williams School. On the occasion of his 50th reunion, a member of the Class of 1969 established the John M. Gunn Endowment for Student Learning and Engagement.

Rob Straughan, Dean of the Williams School of Commerce, summed up John’s impact in an interview last October: “Countless alumni consider John among the most influential individuals during their time as students and in the years since graduation. Similarly, generation after generation of faculty, myself included, benefitted from the oral history handed down by John.”

John’s legacy of wisdom, humor, and kindness will live on in countless ways. Each year CIE staff will continue to join Williams School faculty to choose another winner of the Gunn scholarship. It will be a wonderful experience to welcome an international student in John’s name. But the committee meeting won’t be as much fun without him.

Certificate of International Immersion 2022

Each year, the International Education Committee awards the Certificate of International Immersion to students who complete truly immersive overseas experiences and, upon their return, contribute to campus life by drawing upon their time abroad. Despite the challenges posed by COVID, four students received the Certificate in 2022. Also, the Center for International Education recognizes one student for outstanding commitment to and support of global education at W&L. In 2022, we recognized Kristina Lozinskaya.

STUDENT INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE

Kenza

Amine Benabdallah

HEC School of Management, Paris

John Cabot University, Rome

ARTH 356 – Science in Art: Technical Examination of 17th Century Dutch Paintings, Netherlands

Catherine O’Kelley

Bayreuth University term, Germany

Virtual summer internship, U.S. Department of State in Hamburg, Germany

Critical Language Scholar for Chinese (completed virtually)

Mansfield College, Oxford, UK

Robert Salita

CIE Grant, Valencia, Spain and London, UK

Mansfield College Oxford Partnership Program Academic Year, UK

CIE Collaborative Grant, Shanghai, China

Haochen Tu

IES Abroad Milan – Business Studies, Italy

Oxford Study Abroad Programme, UK

Kristina Lozinskaya, Robert Salita, Haochen Tu, Catherine O’Kelly, Kenza Amine Benabdallah

Global Learning Leadership Award

Kristina Lozinskaya ’22 (Minsk, Belarus) has been an integral part of the W&L community, and especially the W&L international community, over the past four years. She served as International Student Orientation leader for three consecutive years, helping nearly a hundred new international students adjust to life at W&L. During that time, she also corresponded with many prospective international students through her work as a Student Assistant at the Office of Admissions and on the First-Year Orientation Committee. She is also a four-year member of the W&L Amnesty International Chapter and helped to organize fundraising events to promote awareness of global human rights issues and represented the chapter at conferences. During her junior year, she studied abroad at New College, Oxford University in the UK and worked as a U.S.-Russia Peer-toPeer Dialogue and Social Expertise Exchange Programs Intern as part of the Washington Term program in Washington, D.C.

Co-Sponsored Speakers and Scholars

Dr. Christelle Molima Bameka is a resident scholar at W&L law school from 2021-23. She holds a degree in Law from the Catholic University of Bukavu, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). After working in the humanitarian field in the Eastern DRC, she undertook master’s studies and obtained two master’s degrees from the Université Lumière Lyon 2 and the Université Pierre-Mendès France de Grenoble, France. She recently defended her doctoral dissertation at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, on the criminal responsibility of child soldiers in the context of their social and community reintegration in the eastern DRC. She is conducting research on “the legacy of colonization in the aftermath of the armed conflict: what role for transitional justice.” She conducted a preliminary workshop on her research in May, 2022. In 2023, she will collaborate with Mark Drumbl to host a conference on transitional justice.

Dr. Barbora Hola is Senior Researcher and Associate Professor at the Department of Criminal Law and Criminology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She has an interdisciplinary focus and studies transitional justice after atrocities, in particular, international criminal trials, sentencing of international crimes, rehabilitation of war criminals and life after trial at international criminal tribunals.

She was in residence at the law school during the Fall, 2021 semester. She returned in February 2022 to conduct a workshop with Mark Drumbl on the role of informer in totalitarian societies. The workshop developed working papers that will comprise a volume to be published by Oxford University Press.

Barbora was one of the four candidates who received the prestigious ‘WISE’ (Women in Science Excel) fellowship from the Dutch Organization for a Scientific Research to develop her research line on empirical studies of international criminal and transitional justice after atrocities.

The CIE collaborated with the Africana Studies Program to host Garrey Dennie, a former speechwriter for Nelson Mandela and an associate professor of history at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. Dennie delivered a lecture titled “Mandela’s Words: Mightier Than the Sword” on 11 November. The talk, which was part of the university’s miniseries, “The Aftermath of Black Protest” was held in Hillel 101. The series, builds upon the 2020-21 program, “Activism and Black Life,” and scrutinizes Black experiences in the interlude following conspicuous social upheaval. Through a partnership between the African Society and Africana Studies, Dennie also met with students to deliver a talk titled “Activism in College.”

According to Michael Hill, professor of Africana Studies and director of the Delaney Center, both series were inspired by Marvin Gaye’s magnum opus “What’s Going On.” “This album, released roughly three years after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, not only captured how racial reality impacted national and global fate, but also revealed the mindset of Black students who were moving beyond desegregation and charting the next steps in their laying claim to Washington and Lee,” said Hill. “Through the 1971 formation of the Student Association for Black Unity, W&L students built an institution that sustainably improved their plight. This commitment to institution-building becomes a recurring theme for individuals operating in the aftermath of protest. Throughout 2021-2022, we want to study such stories.”

Spring Term Abroad Returns—2022!

Center for International Education Staff

Mark Rush Director, Waxberg Professor of Politics and Law rushm@wlu.edu

Hunter Swanson Associate Director

and

International Student

Scholar Advisor hswanson@wlu.edu

and

Cindy Irby Assistant Director and Study Abroad Advisor cirby@wlu.edu

Erin Weyen Coordinator, Center for International Education eweyen@wlu.edu

Jillian Murphy Study Abroad Coordinator jmurphy@wlu.edu

The Center for International Education 204 W. Washington St. Lexington, Virginia 24450 go.wlu.edu/global

BUS 191 – FY Seminar: Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability

AFCA/ENGL 286 – Black Writers and the Allure of Paris