Language Training Center Highlighted

The Language Training Center in Indianapolis, which offers language and culture training, interpretation and translation services, was featured in the Indianapolis Business Journal. It's owned by Martin George, a former director of the English as a Second Language program at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis.

He has, according to the IBJ "found himself in high demand among some of the world’s biggest athletes and sports properties, from basketball star Yao Ming and IndyCar Series drivers to the NCAA and LPGA."

Read more here.

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International Education Week

In celebration of International Education Week, program directors will be promoting their study abroad programs at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis.

An information table will be on the second floor of Cavanaugh Hall on the IUPUI campus from 15-18 November, where students can find out more information about programs traveling to India, China, France, Germany, Dominican Republic, South Korea, Greece, Canada and many more.

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Burmese Refugee Event in Indy

(IUPUI = Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis)

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Being Good in Life

"About Family, of the Virgin Marshmallow and about Being Good in Life" is the provocative title of a lecture reflecting on anti-Semitism and anti-Islamism in contemporary German discourse from the literary perspective. This presentation by Esther Dischereit will be held from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. 1 November in Room 238 of the Campus Center at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis. It's sponsored by the Max Kade German-American Center and the IUPUI German Program.

Dischereit, who is the Max Kade writer-in-residence at Oberlin College, will unfold thoughts on what it is like to be foreign or to be mainstream, challenging certainties about our personal origins. She counters desires to renew demarcations against the outsider, like the immigrant Muslim baker from Turkey with her shop in Berlin-Moabit. Her presentation ponders the ongoing debate about the relative higher or lower value of race, religion, genetics or other "targets".

Dischereit is a prolific and versatile Jewish-German writer. Her work challenges the repression that she feels characterizes German memory of the National Socialist past, bearing witness not to the Holocaust itself but to how it is both remembered and forgotten in twenty-first-century Germany. Her work addresses intergenerational discussions, themes of alienation and "otherness" in German society that include questions on minority and gender.

Her work covers a wide spectrum of genres: novels, stories and essays; poetry, plays, including radio plays; opera libretti and sound installations. She collaborates with composers and jazz musicians and founded the avant-garde project “WordMusicSpace/Sound-Concepts. A union activist and advocate for women, and later for art and culture with the German Trade Unions, she has played an increasingly prominent literary and cultural role in Germany since the 1980's.

Her fiction has earned her international acclaim and translation of several of her novels into English and Spanish. She was a fellow at the Moses Mendelssohn Centre for European and Jewish Studies and has lectured widely in the United States, Canada, Columbia and Israel. Esther Dischereit has won stipends from the Hessian Ministry for Science and Art, the Stiftung Preussische Seehandlung in Berlin, the Berlin Senate and the Erwin-Strassmann-Stiftung. A symposium about Esther Dischereit's work was held at the University of Wales, Swansea, in 2003, and she was writer-in-residence at Deutsches Haus, New York University, in 2004. In 2009 Esther won the Erich Fried Prize, the most prestigious literary prize awarded by Austria.

For more information, contact Claudia Grossmann, 317:274-3943. Visitor parking is available in the IUPUI Vermont Street Parking Garage.

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Japanese Students Learn About U.S. Culture

When 29 college students from Tokyo, Japan, stepped off a plane in Indianapolis recently, they were embarking on a unique journey of discovery.

To be sure, the students from Tsuda College will perfect their English skills in this custom language immersion program developed by the Indiana Center for Intercultural Communication (ICIC), a language and cultural training center that is part of the School of Liberal Arts at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis.

But discovering more about American culture - and perhaps even a bit more about themselves—will also be an important part of the curriculum.

The Women in Leadership Intensive Summer Program, now in its sixteenth year at IUPUI, is designed to show young women from the all-female college in Japan what it takes to be a leader in the United States, and across cultures.

Prominent female leaders from Indianapolis speak to the students about their journey into leadership roles in the corporate and not-for-profit community.

As part of the program, the students are required to synthesize what they learn from guest speakers and other research and develop a portfolio, presenting what they have learned to the class.

Students live with local families during their month-long stay in Indianapolis. They also have opportunities to participate in a number of cultural activities, including attending an Indiana Fever women’s professional basketball game, visiting the Eiteljorg Museum and the Indiana State Fair. They also took an overnight trip to Chicago.

ICIC develops language and intercultural training programs for many different types of academic and professional groups.

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International Conference on Cloud Computing in Indy

The second IEEE International Conference on Cloud Computing Technology and Science will be held 30 November through 3 December in the University Place Conference Center and Hotel on the campus of Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis. It is hosted by the Pervasive Technology Institute at Indiana University.

The mission of Pervasive Technology Institute is to improve quality of life in Indiana and the world by inventing, developing, deploying and delivering innovations in information technology.

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Crossing Boundaries through Research

The 10th International Research Conference on Service-learning and Community Engagement will be held 28-30 October in the Crowne Plaza Hotel at Union Station in Indianapolis.

"International Perspectives: Crossing Boundaries through Research" is sponsored by the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis' Center for Service and Learning, Indiana Campus Compact, and the International Association for Research on Service-learning and Community Engagement.

Service-learning is valued as an active learning strategy across the globe; however, little is known about the ways that service-learning is similar or different in varied contexts. Understanding service-learning and community engagement from diverse cultural perspectives will add insight necessary for comparative research and to improve practice.

For more information, go online.

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Dr. Giles Hoyt Receives Bundesverdienstkreuz

Giles Hoyt (pictured), Professor Emeritus of German and Philanthropic Studies and past Director of the Max Kade German-American Center in the Indiana University School of Liberal Arts at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis is the recipient of the Bundesverdienstkreuz, the Federal Cross of Honor, which is the Federal Republic of Germany’s highest tribute for services to the nation.

An internationally recognized scholar, Dr. Hoyt's service to the university, as well as to the German-American community, particularly in Indiana and the Midwest, spans more than three decades. He has served on the board of numerous organizations, both locally and nationally, dealing with German-American relations. Professor Hoyt was instrumental in the establishment and development of the IUPUI Max Kade German-American Research and Resource Center, a national model for interdisciplinary German and German-American Studies.

The Bundesverdienstkreuz was instituted in 1951 by German President Theodor Heuss. It is the only honor that may be awarded in all fields of endeavor. It may be awarded to Germans as well as foreigners for achievements in the political, economic, social or intellectual realm and for a myriad of outstanding services to the nation in the fields of social, charitable and philanthropic work.

Hoyt received the Cross 23 June from Consul General of Germany Onno Hueckmann, who traveled from Chicago to make the presentation. The ceremony took place at the Indianapolis Athenaeum and was hosted by the Max Kade German-American Center. Indiana’s Honorary Consul to Germany, Sven Schumacher, served as the event emcee.

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Well in Sierra Leone Funded by IUPUI Students

It began two years ago when the first dollar was dropped into a glass jar, reports the news bureau at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis. It will end in September 2010 when a notice is attached to a new well to be dug in a village in Sierra Leone, thanking members of the Psychology Club and Psi Chi, the international honors society in Psychology, at IUPUI for providing the villagers with clean drinking water.

The psychology students raised $4041 toward the $4,850 cost of the well, starting in 2008. The first $100 was donated at a presentation arranged by the Psychology Club and Psi Chi by a member of the Fisher’s Rotary Club, describing that club’s efforts to raise money for wells in Africa through Water is Life, a project connected to World Hope International.

The students then obtained Water is Life t-shirts, bracelets, bumper stickers and candles to sell, with 100 percent of the proceeds going to the cost of the well.

Africa Water is Life, an initiative that was launched to empower young people to help people in Africa, will contribute the remaining $809 for the well so it can be drilled this fall.

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Karua To Speak at IUPUI

The Honorable Martha Karua will speak on "Justice, Human Rights and National Cohesion" from 5-7 p.m. 5 April in the Wynne Courtroom of the Indiana University School of Law in Indianapolis, 530 West New York Street, Indianapolis. Ms. Karua is a Member of Parliament, former Minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs and renowned activist in the promotion of justice, accountability, women’s rights and other human rights in Kenya. Refreshments to follow in the Law School atrium.

Her appearance is co-sponsored by Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis' Office of International Affairs, Multicultural Center, Office for Women, Human Rights Works Program in International Human Rights Law at IU Law-Indianapolis, the Indiana University-Kenya Partnership and The University College.

The presentation and reception are open to the public at no charge.

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Socio-Cultural Minorities in France Today

Rosalie Vermette (left) will discuss "On the Edge: Socio-Cultural Minorities in France Today" at 4:30 p.m. Friday (26 March) during a Sabbatical Speaker Talk in Room 264, Campus Center, Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis, 420 University Boulevard, Indianapolis. Dr. Vermette is Professor of French and Adjunct Professor of Women's Studies and a founding faculty member of University College.

She notes that both within France and between France and other nations there exist borders that attempt to separate social, cultural, and linguistic minority groups, creating a special category of "edge peoples" who have, metaphorically, one foot on either side of the divide. Information, Patti Hair.

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Moi University–IUPUI Peace Symposium

A Peace Symposium co-sponsored by Moi University and Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis will be held 12-14 May in Eldoret, Kenya. The theme is Youth Empowerment for Peace, Reconciliation and Development. See the call for papers. Deadline for submission of abstracts is 26 March.


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Indiana University's EU Moot Court Team Advances

A team of law students from the Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis campus has advanced to the regionals of an international moot court competition, reports the IUPUI News Bureau

Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis students Douglas Clough, Kyle Kimble, Lumi Nodit and Nathan Seger will participate in the oral round of the European Union Law Moot Court Competition 25-27 February at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy.

The EU Moot Court Competition is an annual international event in which teams compete in a written and oral competition arguing the merits of a hypothetical case involving a series of legal questions prevalent in the European Union. The written competition involves the preparation of two written briefs, applicant and defendant in a hypothetical suit before the European Court of Justice.

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Second Annual Hunger Banquet

The Second Annual Hunger Banquet begins at 6:30 p.m. 20 February in Room 450 of the Campus Center at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis. It's sponsored by IUPUI Campus and Global Health Student Interest Group and co-sponsored by the IUPUI Common Theme Project and by Partnership: Africa.

This is an "awareness and advocacy event", which will feature diverse cultural entertainment, sales of fair-trade Kenyan crafts from Imani Workshops, and ethnic food from restaurants around Indianapolis. Tickets are $12. All proceeds benefit IU-Kenya Orphans & Vulnerable Children Program" (pictured).

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Kenya Project Receives $5 Million to Expand Care

A partnership between Indiana and Kenya is receiving a 3-year, $5 million grant from USAID to expand health care in western Kenya, reports Inside INdiana Business. Academic Model Providing Access to Healthcare (AMPATH), a collaboration between the IU School of Medicine and Kenya's Moi University School of Medicine and Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital, will use the grant and other private funds to expand its network of clinics in the sub-Saharan nation.

AMPATH, the joint partnership between Indiana University School of Medicine, the Moi (Eldoret, Kenya) University School of Medicine and Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital, has received a 3-year, $5 million USAID supplement grant to expand health care services in western Kenya.

AMPATH – the Academic Model Providing Access to Healthcare – received a 5-year, $60 million grant from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2007 to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS in Kenya. AMPATH is the outgrowth of an IU School of Medicine and Moi University partnership formed 20 years ago.

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IUPUI Co-Sponsoring Biocomputing Symposium in India

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis and the National Institute of Technology Calicut (pictured) in India are partnering to increase international research opportunities among life and computer science scholars, reports Inside INdiana Business. Both institutions have co-founded the first International Symposium on Biocomputing to take place 15-17 February in Calicut City. Lecturers and presenters representing 14 countries will focus on bioinformatics and biotechnology.

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"A Poor Man Shames Us All"

Explore the alternative views of wealth and society that are exhibited in the lives of tribal cultures as seen in the film, "A Poor Man Shames Us All". Viewers journey from a New York ad agency to the jungles of Indonesia and the plains of Kenya to see how Western views of wealth and economic needs have created a society of strangers in the midst of material riches, while tribal cultures such as the Weyewa of Indonesia and the Gabra of Kenya create economies of dependency on others and measure wealth through people, not possessions. The showing will be at 6 p.m. Thursday (28 January) in the Lilly Auditorium of University Library at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis, 755 West Michigan Street, Indianapolis.

After the screening, Ian McIntosh of the IUPUI Office of International Affairs will lead a discussion of this film by David Mabury-Lewis. The event, part of Partnership Africa at IUPUI is co-sponsored by the IUPUI Common Theme Project.

Partnership Africa is a year-long series of lectures, films, performances, exhibits, and video conferences focused on a part of the world with which IUPUI has strong connections, done in collaboration with colleagues, students, and public figures from that country or region.

UPDATE: This screening has been postponed; no date has been announced.

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IUPUI European Studies Conference

The first European Studies conference at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis will be held on Friday (4 December) from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. in Campus Center 305 on the IUPUI campus. There will be three panels and research presentations from faculty colleagues in the Indiana University School of Liberal Arts departments of History, Communication Studies, and Political Science and the Herron School of Art. For more information, contact John McCormick, 317:274-4066.

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Osili Named Director of Research at Center on Philanthropy

Dr. Una Okonkwo Osili (pictured) has been named director of research for the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis.

Osili has served as interim director of research at the Center since October 2008. She will develop new research initiatives, convene scholars and nonprofit professionals nationally and internationally, direct the Center’s research department, and serve as lead researcher on several research projects.

An associate professor of economics and Philanthropic Studies at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), Osili has served as a consultant for the United Nations Development Program, the United Economics Commission for Africa and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Osili also served on the International Scientific Panel for the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa/MacArthur Foundation Real Economies of Africa program and as a member of the Expert Advisory Panel for the Economic Report on Africa published by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.

Dr. Osili's recent studies have centered on how cultural diversity affects philanthropy in the United States, using data from the Center on Philanthropy Panel Study to look at charitable behavior of immigrants.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in economics with honors from Harvard University and a master of arts and a Ph.D. in economics from Northwestern University. The daughter of an American mother and a Nigerian father, she lived in Nigeria until she was 15 years old. She is the wife of architect Vop Osili, who recently announced his candidacy for Indiana Secretary of State.

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McIntosh Named Rotary World Peace Fellow

Dr. Ian McIntosh (pictured, at right, top), Director of International Partnerships at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis and faculty member in the Department of Anthropology, has been named a 2010 Rotary World Peace Fellow.

As part of this award, Dr. McIntosh will spend three months next summer at Chulalongkorn University in Thailand at the Rotary Center for International Studies in Peace and Conflict Resolution.

The purpose of the Rotary Centers program is to:
· Support and advance research, teaching, publication, and practical field experience on issues of peace, goodwill, causes of conflict, and world understanding
· Inspire people to work for a culture of peace and tolerance while enhancing their capacity, knowledge, and skill by generating interaction between practitioners and academics
· Provide advanced international education opportunities in the area of peace and conflict resolution
· Provide a means for The Rotary Foundation and Rotarians to increase their effectiveness in promoting greater tolerance and cooperation among peoples, leading to world understanding and peace

Dr. McIntosh's research interests focus on issues of truth and reconciliation in global perspective, and he teaches a class at IUPUI that utilizes a unique "reconciliation barometer" to shed light on the quest for reconciliation through treaties, peace accords, apologies, reparations, truth commissions, trials and memorials. In partnership with the Scholars at Risk Network of New York University, and Human Rights Works, he coordinates the “Voices at Risk, Visions of Hope” speaker series at IUPUI. This series provides opportunities for faculty, staff, and students to interact via video-conference with some of the world’s most distinguished scholars who, as a result of their advocacy for human rights and justice in their homelands, have been forced to take refuge in the USA.

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