ACTIVITIES
The Modern Language Fair
Organized in the fall semester, the MLF aims to broaden understanding of language study while informing students about modern language & literature courses.
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LaGuardia video about languages:
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The Language Career Fair
The Language Career Fair further explores options for students and brings awareness about the importance of languages in the job market. Guest participants hail from publishing, health, business, tourism & hospitality, interpreting, law, education, and finance, from large and small corporations and from institutions such as the UN.
The International Mother Language Day
The International Mother Language Day has been celebrated by the United Nations since 2000. Organized in the spring semester, the goal of the IMLD is to celebrate the rich diversity of LaGuardia. As languages are the most powerful instruments of preserving and developing our heritage, by promoting mother tongues, we develop awareness of linguistic and cultural traditions in the college community.
Marseille Study Abroad Program (June-July 2017)
I co-led this program with my friend and colleague Lucy McNair (English department).
Combining a one-week intensive course at LaGuardia and a two-week stay in Marseille, participants studied the city as a “contact zone” through the lens of French literature in translation and creative nonfiction as they explored the city’s institutions and neighborhoods and learned about its history and contemporary problems. Course readings, on-site visits, and final assignments posed common questions about how large cities establish cultural integration, where division and strife tend to erupt, and how individuals can nurture a cosmopolitan identity.
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African Heritage Celebration with Mookie Wilson (May 2014)
I invited the New York Mets World Series Hero Mookie Wilson to speak about “Sports and Race in America” and I moderated a Q&A with Mr. Wilson on the lack of involvement of African Americans in baseball compared to the past, as well as on the prevalence of stereotypes and prejudice against Blacks in baseball. Mookie then discussed growing up in the segregated South during the turbulent Sixties and early Seventies. As the first black player on the University of South Carolina baseball team, he was not spared racist comments. (Linkto the article Mets Legend Mookie Wilson Speaks at LaGuardia Community College) The importance of education, and working to get his degree, were a focal point of Mookie's talk with students. He was a middle-aged man when he finally graduated from Mercy College, the path to his degree having been interrupted by his years as a professional ballplayer and coach.
Heritage Language Scholars, the Henry Luce Foundation (2014-2015)
The HLS was a year-long program designed to enhance language proficiency and global competencies of selected students. The program aimed to develop leadership skills through weekly seminars; develop participants’ heritage language and cultural knowledge; and link HL skills with academic and career opportunities through summer internships overseas or in the US. The program was structured around mandatory language courses, weekly workshops with guest speakers, weekly conversation classes, and a range of cultural events throughout the year, with heritage cultures represented in fine art, music, and theater as well as dining. I was the faculty mentor for Arabic for three cohorts. My last contribution to the program was my presentation at the Cooperative & Work Integrated Education conference in Kyoto, Japan in August 2015 on Luce Internship success stories.