[Blog post & Facebook note from http://www.goglobalatsnu.blogspot.com]
The year 2010 has started off as a super month for going global at SNU. It has also meant a lot of traveling for me. Here are some things that have been going on in January.
Part I: QERC
January 4-9, I was in Costa Rica with 6 students from Southern Nazarene University and 4 students from Northwest Nazarene University (NNU). They are spending the semester at SNU's Quetzal Education and Research Center (QERC) in San Gerardo de Dota, one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. The video below is the view from the main building at QERC.
I went to Costa Rica with them to observe and participate in their initial orientation. The students are all life science (biology, bio-chem, etc.) majors and will spend the semester doing field research and taking related courses. They also take a course called Applied Cultural Integration, which is where I come in. Applied Cultural Integration helps the students integrate into the local culture, including learning enough survival Spanish that they can travel about Costa Rica on their own, and reflect on their experiences in Costa Rica and Nicaragua from a wider perspective of studying about all of Latin America. Students can also opt to take a test and receive from 6-12 hours of language credit. I will go back down in April to wrap up their ACI studies and give them their language credit test.
An interesting and challenging part of their initial orientation in Costa Rica is the day they take a bus on their own into San José...without any more Spanish than what they had when they left the U.S. Once in San José, they have two days to complete a list of tasks, working in small groups, that makes them travel throughout the downtown and adjoining areas, find designated places, do assigned activities and meet at a designated meeting place. After those two days, they have to get back to San Gerardo on their own. I think that I would find it somewhat intimidating to do all that they were assigned to do, but they all did it, and I think all of them, or at least almost all of them, enjoyed it. The most important part of their adventure was that it gave them the skills they needed to be able to travel Costa Rica on their own without the need for a sponsor or chaperone to lead them.
QERC is a super opportunity for SNU life science majors to explore a little bit of the world, immerse themselves in a different culture and fulfill course requirements in their majors, all while living in a beautiful environment. It happens every spring. If you are an SNU student, take advantage. If you are not an SNU student but are thinking about coming, it’s just one more reason to make SNU your school.
Coming up...
Part II: Two more SNU students studying at the Latin American Studies Program and one at the Nazarene International Language Institute
Part III: My visit to Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas, Mexico, to get acquainted with Healing Waters International's (Aguas de Unidad) water purification project
Par IV: Learning about study abroad opportunities in Spain while sampling Spanish tapas, cheeses and Iberian ham
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Making College Relevant
[Blog post/Facebook note from http://www.goglobalatsnu.blogspot.com]
Here's another shameless plug for Southern Nazarene University's globally-oriented programs. A recent (12/29/09) New York Times article, Making College ‘Relevant’, commented on the accelerating trend of undergraduate students and their parents focusing their attention on the economic benefits of a college degree. "Consider the change captured in the annual survey by the University of California, Los Angeles, of more than 400,000 incoming freshmen. In 1971, 37 percent responded that it was essential or very important to be 'very well-off financially,' while 73 percent said the same about 'developing a meaningful philosophy of life.' In 2009, the values were nearly reversed: 78 percent identified wealth as a goal, while 48 percent were after a meaningful philosophy." Naturally, this change in focus has resulted in some undergraduate majors, such as business, increasing in popularity while others, such as classics or philosophy, have lost popularity. As the article observes, some majors long considered as foundational for a liberal arts education are being threatened: "The University of Louisiana, Lafayette, is eliminating its philosophy major, while Michigan State University is doing away with American studies and classics, after years of declining enrollments in those majors."
SNU is certainly not immune to such developments. In fact, in my role as an academic advisor I encourage my advisees from the very beginning to think about what they are going to do once they finish their undergraduate degree. SNU is an expensive school. There is no way of getting around that fact. I know what it's like to have a child in an expensive university because my two oldest children graduated from expensive private universities. As a parent footing much of the bill, I was concerned that they come out with an education that would help them earn a living. I did not necessarily want them to become wealthy (although, as a retirement plan, having wealthy children is not such a bad idea). However, I did want them to be employable in a field that would provide a good living and provide them satisfaction. I believe the parents of most SNU students want the same for their children.
On the other hand, many university professors and administrators advocate forcefully for the value of a traditional liberal arts education. "'We believe that we do our best for students when we give them tools to be analytical, to be able to gather information and to determine the validity of that information themselves, particularly in this world where people don’t filter for you anymore,' Dr. Coleman [University of Michigan President] says. 'We want to teach them how to make an argument, how to defend an argument, to make a choice.' These are the skills that liberal arts colleges in particular have prided themselves on teaching. But these colleges also say they have the hardest time explaining the link between what they teach and the kind of job and salary a student can expect on the other end."
SNU's International Studies Program (ISP) is an excellent approach to the issue of preparing students who can think and act in a global environment, who are well-prepared to enter the job market or to pursue graduate study after graduation, who develop skills that can be put to use immediately and who have a foundation that will continue to develop for years after they leave campus. The ISP is a multi-disciplinary major that emphasizes developing practical business-oriented skills that are useful across a wide spectrum of organizations, from large, international businesses, to governmental and quasi-governmental agencies, to large and small non-governmental organizations (NGO's) to mission agencies. At the same time, the ISP emphasizes developing linguistic and cross-cultural skills and understanding along with a good foundation in history and political science. ISP graduates are prepared to go in many different directions, and they are doing just that, going on to graduate school, entering the business world or working in the U.S. or overseas with non-profits and NGO's.
Given the global environment into which our graduates go, I do not believe there is a more "relevant" major than SNU's International Studies Program major.
Here's another shameless plug for Southern Nazarene University's globally-oriented programs. A recent (12/29/09) New York Times article, Making College ‘Relevant’, commented on the accelerating trend of undergraduate students and their parents focusing their attention on the economic benefits of a college degree. "Consider the change captured in the annual survey by the University of California, Los Angeles, of more than 400,000 incoming freshmen. In 1971, 37 percent responded that it was essential or very important to be 'very well-off financially,' while 73 percent said the same about 'developing a meaningful philosophy of life.' In 2009, the values were nearly reversed: 78 percent identified wealth as a goal, while 48 percent were after a meaningful philosophy." Naturally, this change in focus has resulted in some undergraduate majors, such as business, increasing in popularity while others, such as classics or philosophy, have lost popularity. As the article observes, some majors long considered as foundational for a liberal arts education are being threatened: "The University of Louisiana, Lafayette, is eliminating its philosophy major, while Michigan State University is doing away with American studies and classics, after years of declining enrollments in those majors."
SNU is certainly not immune to such developments. In fact, in my role as an academic advisor I encourage my advisees from the very beginning to think about what they are going to do once they finish their undergraduate degree. SNU is an expensive school. There is no way of getting around that fact. I know what it's like to have a child in an expensive university because my two oldest children graduated from expensive private universities. As a parent footing much of the bill, I was concerned that they come out with an education that would help them earn a living. I did not necessarily want them to become wealthy (although, as a retirement plan, having wealthy children is not such a bad idea). However, I did want them to be employable in a field that would provide a good living and provide them satisfaction. I believe the parents of most SNU students want the same for their children.
On the other hand, many university professors and administrators advocate forcefully for the value of a traditional liberal arts education. "'We believe that we do our best for students when we give them tools to be analytical, to be able to gather information and to determine the validity of that information themselves, particularly in this world where people don’t filter for you anymore,' Dr. Coleman [University of Michigan President] says. 'We want to teach them how to make an argument, how to defend an argument, to make a choice.' These are the skills that liberal arts colleges in particular have prided themselves on teaching. But these colleges also say they have the hardest time explaining the link between what they teach and the kind of job and salary a student can expect on the other end."
SNU's International Studies Program (ISP) is an excellent approach to the issue of preparing students who can think and act in a global environment, who are well-prepared to enter the job market or to pursue graduate study after graduation, who develop skills that can be put to use immediately and who have a foundation that will continue to develop for years after they leave campus. The ISP is a multi-disciplinary major that emphasizes developing practical business-oriented skills that are useful across a wide spectrum of organizations, from large, international businesses, to governmental and quasi-governmental agencies, to large and small non-governmental organizations (NGO's) to mission agencies. At the same time, the ISP emphasizes developing linguistic and cross-cultural skills and understanding along with a good foundation in history and political science. ISP graduates are prepared to go in many different directions, and they are doing just that, going on to graduate school, entering the business world or working in the U.S. or overseas with non-profits and NGO's.
Given the global environment into which our graduates go, I do not believe there is a more "relevant" major than SNU's International Studies Program major.
Friday, January 1, 2010
Preparing to do good in deed as well as in word
[http://www.goglobalatsnu.blogspot.com]
In my first blog post/Facebook note of 2010 (the blog automatically posts to Facebook), I thought I would comment on some interesting online articles that I've come across over the last couple of months. I've already commented on a couple of these articles either on this blog or on Facebook, but I wanted to join them together with another article and see if I can make them relate to each other. The fourth article is one I just read today. It lays some groundwork to argue for the value of an undergraduate education at a teaching university like Southern Nazarene University (SNU). So, here goes for the first for 2010.
"Earning Commissions on 'The Great Commission'" (Wall Street Journal, 11/12/09) describes "missionary" entrepreneurs. In my blog post on 11/14/09, I differentiated missionary entrepreneurs from entrepreneurial missionaries and bivocational missionaries. Missionary entrepreneurs use their entrepreneurial skills in profit-making enterprises to carry out both the Great Commission and the Great Commandments. "Evangelical, and Young, and Active in New Area" (New York Times, 11/27/09) talks about how young, activist evangelicals are turning their activism toward making the world a better place for marginalized people. The article states, "Without disowning longstanding causes for evangelical activists like opposition to abortion or support for school vouchers, these young evangelicals have taken up issues previously abdicated to secular and religious liberals: climate change, AIDS prevention and treatment, Third World poverty." These first two articles are overtly religious in subject matter. The third article, an Op Ed piece by Nicholas Kristof ("How Can We Help the World’s Poor?," New York Times, 11/20/09), is about international do-goodism in general and makes the case that a healthy dose of healthy capitalism (my redundancy is intentional) could be the best hope for world poverty relief. He observes, "I was recently in Liberia, a fragile African democracy struggling to rebuild. It is chock-full of aid groups rushing around in white S.U.V.’s doing wonderful work. But it also needs factories to employ people, build skills and pay salaries and taxes. Americans are horrified by sweatshops, but nothing would help Liberia more than if China moved some of its sweatshops there, so that Liberians could make sandals and T-shirts."
The common perspective I find in all three articles is a focus on pragmatism, on specific, concrete, real world actions that address intractable issues that affect millions of people around the world. As I think about our SNU students and graduates, I see many who are focused on fulfilling the Great Commission and Great Commandments and doing so in pragmatic ways, ways that produce real, measurable, long-lasting results to combat many of those intractable issues. I am proud of those students and graduates. I'm also glad that SNU offers students excellent preparation to go out into the world and make an impact that lasts. As I write this, I think of those students who right now are on Commission Unto Mexico, ministering and gaining practical experience that will help many years into the future. I also think about our students who have just returned from the Latin American Studies Program (LASP) in Costa Rica and those who are preparing to go to LASP in a few days, as well as those who have studied at SNU's Queztal Education and Research Center (QERC) in Costa Rica and those who leave for QERC on Monday, 01/04/10. Add the students who have studied at the Nazarene International Language Institute (NILI) or other study abroad sites as well as those who have done internships in Honduras and Uganda and you start to get a feel for all the ways that SNU prepares students to go into the world do something that makes a difference.
Later on this month, I will travel to Chiapas, Mexico, to help set up an internship under the auspices of the Morningstar Institute, SNU's international development and poverty alleviation training institute. Our goal in Chiapas is for SNU students to contribute to the development of micro-enterprises that will support and help expand an existing ministry already there. The Morningstar Institute is also working to set up micro-enterprise related internships in Swaziland. To any evangelical high school student who is serious about exploring God's call to love the world in deed and not just in word, I would say take a serious look at SNU. I do not believe you will find a school that will help you along your way any better than SNU will.
Finally, another plug for SNU: "The Case of the Vanishing Full-Time Professor" is a New York Times article from 12/30/09 that talks about how more and more top-tier universities are using grad students and adjunct instructors for their undergraduate courses. According to the article, "In 1960, 75 percent of college instructors were full-time tenured or tenure-track professors; today only 27 percent are. The rest are graduate students or adjunct and contingent faculty — instructors employed on a per-course or yearly contract basis, usually without benefits and earning a third or less of what their tenured colleagues make." Many grad students and adjunct instructors are excellent teachers. However, in many cases their primary focus is not on teaching or they teach so many courses in order to make a living that they cannot do an adequate job. (I know that happens. When I was an adjunct, at times I taught so many courses that there was no way I could give my best to any of them.) SNU does use adjunct instructors, and by and large they are excellent teachers. However, the focus at SNU is clearly on undergraduate teaching and the majority of courses are taught by full-time faculty, most of whom hold doctorates in their teaching fields. Another reason for high school students to give SNU a good look.
Here's to 2010. Let's make it a good one.
In my first blog post/Facebook note of 2010 (the blog automatically posts to Facebook), I thought I would comment on some interesting online articles that I've come across over the last couple of months. I've already commented on a couple of these articles either on this blog or on Facebook, but I wanted to join them together with another article and see if I can make them relate to each other. The fourth article is one I just read today. It lays some groundwork to argue for the value of an undergraduate education at a teaching university like Southern Nazarene University (SNU). So, here goes for the first for 2010.
"Earning Commissions on 'The Great Commission'" (Wall Street Journal, 11/12/09) describes "missionary" entrepreneurs. In my blog post on 11/14/09, I differentiated missionary entrepreneurs from entrepreneurial missionaries and bivocational missionaries. Missionary entrepreneurs use their entrepreneurial skills in profit-making enterprises to carry out both the Great Commission and the Great Commandments. "Evangelical, and Young, and Active in New Area" (New York Times, 11/27/09) talks about how young, activist evangelicals are turning their activism toward making the world a better place for marginalized people. The article states, "Without disowning longstanding causes for evangelical activists like opposition to abortion or support for school vouchers, these young evangelicals have taken up issues previously abdicated to secular and religious liberals: climate change, AIDS prevention and treatment, Third World poverty." These first two articles are overtly religious in subject matter. The third article, an Op Ed piece by Nicholas Kristof ("How Can We Help the World’s Poor?," New York Times, 11/20/09), is about international do-goodism in general and makes the case that a healthy dose of healthy capitalism (my redundancy is intentional) could be the best hope for world poverty relief. He observes, "I was recently in Liberia, a fragile African democracy struggling to rebuild. It is chock-full of aid groups rushing around in white S.U.V.’s doing wonderful work. But it also needs factories to employ people, build skills and pay salaries and taxes. Americans are horrified by sweatshops, but nothing would help Liberia more than if China moved some of its sweatshops there, so that Liberians could make sandals and T-shirts."
The common perspective I find in all three articles is a focus on pragmatism, on specific, concrete, real world actions that address intractable issues that affect millions of people around the world. As I think about our SNU students and graduates, I see many who are focused on fulfilling the Great Commission and Great Commandments and doing so in pragmatic ways, ways that produce real, measurable, long-lasting results to combat many of those intractable issues. I am proud of those students and graduates. I'm also glad that SNU offers students excellent preparation to go out into the world and make an impact that lasts. As I write this, I think of those students who right now are on Commission Unto Mexico, ministering and gaining practical experience that will help many years into the future. I also think about our students who have just returned from the Latin American Studies Program (LASP) in Costa Rica and those who are preparing to go to LASP in a few days, as well as those who have studied at SNU's Queztal Education and Research Center (QERC) in Costa Rica and those who leave for QERC on Monday, 01/04/10. Add the students who have studied at the Nazarene International Language Institute (NILI) or other study abroad sites as well as those who have done internships in Honduras and Uganda and you start to get a feel for all the ways that SNU prepares students to go into the world do something that makes a difference.
Later on this month, I will travel to Chiapas, Mexico, to help set up an internship under the auspices of the Morningstar Institute, SNU's international development and poverty alleviation training institute. Our goal in Chiapas is for SNU students to contribute to the development of micro-enterprises that will support and help expand an existing ministry already there. The Morningstar Institute is also working to set up micro-enterprise related internships in Swaziland. To any evangelical high school student who is serious about exploring God's call to love the world in deed and not just in word, I would say take a serious look at SNU. I do not believe you will find a school that will help you along your way any better than SNU will.
Finally, another plug for SNU: "The Case of the Vanishing Full-Time Professor" is a New York Times article from 12/30/09 that talks about how more and more top-tier universities are using grad students and adjunct instructors for their undergraduate courses. According to the article, "In 1960, 75 percent of college instructors were full-time tenured or tenure-track professors; today only 27 percent are. The rest are graduate students or adjunct and contingent faculty — instructors employed on a per-course or yearly contract basis, usually without benefits and earning a third or less of what their tenured colleagues make." Many grad students and adjunct instructors are excellent teachers. However, in many cases their primary focus is not on teaching or they teach so many courses in order to make a living that they cannot do an adequate job. (I know that happens. When I was an adjunct, at times I taught so many courses that there was no way I could give my best to any of them.) SNU does use adjunct instructors, and by and large they are excellent teachers. However, the focus at SNU is clearly on undergraduate teaching and the majority of courses are taught by full-time faculty, most of whom hold doctorates in their teaching fields. Another reason for high school students to give SNU a good look.
Here's to 2010. Let's make it a good one.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Earning Commissions on the 'Great Commission'
[http://www.goglobalatsnu.blogspot.com]
"Earning Commissions on the 'Great Commission'" is an article in Friday's (11/13/09) Wall Street Journal that gives an interesting take on missionary-entrepreneurs. As the article describes them, this breed of missionary is not the same as an entrepreneurial missionary. An entrepreneurial missionary is one who takes an entrepreneurial approach or who applies entrepreneurial skills to evangelism and church planting. My observation from research, study and 20+ years of overseas and domestic mission work is that almost ever successful evangelist or church planter takes an entrepreneurial approach to what he or she does. [A little bit of digression at this point: When I was on the mission field in Latin America, I found that the Master of Business Administration work I did before going to the field was as helpful, perhaps even more helpful, as the Master of Divinity and Doctor of Ministry work I had done. On the other hand, in teaching the occasional business course as I do now, I find that my experience in overseas church planting is about as helpful as anything I studied in my M.B.A. program. Fields of study and practical experience often intersect in surprising ways.]
According to the WSJ article, missionary-entrepreneurs are individuals who use their business expertise to start for-profit businesses in other countries. They differ from the countless missionaries who have started non-profit health and welfare oriented organizations overseas in that the businesses the "business-planters" start are genuine, for-profit enterprises with one of their goals being that of turning a profit. On the other hand, while this "Business as Mission" movement stems from the ever increasing globalization of markets and opportunities in international business, those who start businesses under this new paradigm are as interested in impacting peoples' lives for good as they are in making money. Another contrast with a well-known model is that these mission-minded business people are not tentmakers in the mode of the apostle Paul who gives us the model for bi-vocational ministry (supporting yourself with a "secular" job while you pursue "ministry" in a traditional setting). For missionary-entrepreneurs, their business is their ministry and it opens up to them new ways of being missional.
I first came across the missionary-entrepreneur concept while I was a missionary in Guatemala. A fellow-missionary loaned me a tape (back in the days before CD's and MP3's) of lectures given by Tony Campolo in which he described his vision of newly-minted graduates of bachelor's and master's level business programs taking their skills overseas to start businesses that would have a mission impact. I remember well how I was so moved by one of the tapes that I was listening to as I drove that I had to pull the car over to the side of the road because I couldn't pay attention to my driving and continue listening to the tape.
Campolo's challenge to students went something along the line of instead of going to work for a big, international corporation that really doesn't need your talent, consider going to work someplace that desperately needs the business smarts you can offer. That is the kind of challenge I hope our students at Southern Nazarene University hear from our International Studies Program (ISP) and from SNU's Morningstar Institute. As one of the directors of the ISP, I know that too often I'm so immersed in the details of making sure students are fulfilling course requirements, preparing for their required overseas semester and scheduling the classes they need that I neglect to challenge them directly to consider using their interests in international work and the skills they are developing at SNU in ways that are creative, authentic and clearly missional.
Southern Nazarene University's International Studies Program is a fantastic way for Christian students to prepare to do what Tony Campolo challenged his students to do or to establish the kind of business that Dwight Martin, founder of Thailand-based data processor Pac Tec Asia Co. Ltd. has. Martin "employs Buddhists and Christians in his seven-person company," which converts paper documents into digital ones for Western companies. He then uses his profits “to build digital libraries…for pastors and teachers in Thailand.”
"Earning Commissions on the 'Great Commission'" is an article in Friday's (11/13/09) Wall Street Journal that gives an interesting take on missionary-entrepreneurs. As the article describes them, this breed of missionary is not the same as an entrepreneurial missionary. An entrepreneurial missionary is one who takes an entrepreneurial approach or who applies entrepreneurial skills to evangelism and church planting. My observation from research, study and 20+ years of overseas and domestic mission work is that almost ever successful evangelist or church planter takes an entrepreneurial approach to what he or she does. [A little bit of digression at this point: When I was on the mission field in Latin America, I found that the Master of Business Administration work I did before going to the field was as helpful, perhaps even more helpful, as the Master of Divinity and Doctor of Ministry work I had done. On the other hand, in teaching the occasional business course as I do now, I find that my experience in overseas church planting is about as helpful as anything I studied in my M.B.A. program. Fields of study and practical experience often intersect in surprising ways.]
According to the WSJ article, missionary-entrepreneurs are individuals who use their business expertise to start for-profit businesses in other countries. They differ from the countless missionaries who have started non-profit health and welfare oriented organizations overseas in that the businesses the "business-planters" start are genuine, for-profit enterprises with one of their goals being that of turning a profit. On the other hand, while this "Business as Mission" movement stems from the ever increasing globalization of markets and opportunities in international business, those who start businesses under this new paradigm are as interested in impacting peoples' lives for good as they are in making money. Another contrast with a well-known model is that these mission-minded business people are not tentmakers in the mode of the apostle Paul who gives us the model for bi-vocational ministry (supporting yourself with a "secular" job while you pursue "ministry" in a traditional setting). For missionary-entrepreneurs, their business is their ministry and it opens up to them new ways of being missional.
I first came across the missionary-entrepreneur concept while I was a missionary in Guatemala. A fellow-missionary loaned me a tape (back in the days before CD's and MP3's) of lectures given by Tony Campolo in which he described his vision of newly-minted graduates of bachelor's and master's level business programs taking their skills overseas to start businesses that would have a mission impact. I remember well how I was so moved by one of the tapes that I was listening to as I drove that I had to pull the car over to the side of the road because I couldn't pay attention to my driving and continue listening to the tape.
Campolo's challenge to students went something along the line of instead of going to work for a big, international corporation that really doesn't need your talent, consider going to work someplace that desperately needs the business smarts you can offer. That is the kind of challenge I hope our students at Southern Nazarene University hear from our International Studies Program (ISP) and from SNU's Morningstar Institute. As one of the directors of the ISP, I know that too often I'm so immersed in the details of making sure students are fulfilling course requirements, preparing for their required overseas semester and scheduling the classes they need that I neglect to challenge them directly to consider using their interests in international work and the skills they are developing at SNU in ways that are creative, authentic and clearly missional.
Southern Nazarene University's International Studies Program is a fantastic way for Christian students to prepare to do what Tony Campolo challenged his students to do or to establish the kind of business that Dwight Martin, founder of Thailand-based data processor Pac Tec Asia Co. Ltd. has. Martin "employs Buddhists and Christians in his seven-person company," which converts paper documents into digital ones for Western companies. He then uses his profits “to build digital libraries…for pastors and teachers in Thailand.”
Thursday, October 29, 2009
ATA in NYC!
[http://www.goglobalatsnu.blogspot.com]
As I write this, I am sitting in my room on the 21st floor of the New York Marriott Marquis. The hotel is located on Broadway in the heart of Times Square. My room is not on the Broadway side of the hotel, so I can't look out on Times Square from my window. However, I can see some of the theaters from my window. I'm planning on taking in a show or two while I'm here.
I'm in NY to attend the annual convention of the American Translators Association (ATA), which is also a celebration of the ATA's 50th anniversary. I love attending ATA conventions. For one thing, as I make my way through the mass of people during coffee breaks, I hear more languages than I can keep track of. Often, I have no idea what language is being spoken when I overhear a conversation. It must be kind of like going to a U.N. function. I love it. However, the best part of attending ATA conventions is the abundance of very practical workshop sessions they offer. The downside to that abundance is that you have to make hard choices. Typically there are 14-16 sessions running simultaneously at each time slot. For instance, the sessions start on Thursday and I am already faced with 54 different workshops I could attend just today. Multiply that by 3 (the convention runs through Saturday) and you can see how frustrating it is not to be able to be in two places at the same time. I am skipping the time slots devoted to plenary ATA business sessions so that I can get some other work done (like write this blog post), which leaves me the opportunity to attend 10 sessions over 3 days. (No evening sessions other than opening and closing receptions, which gives time for exploring, seeing shows and generally just getting out and about.) In the past, I usually have concentrated on the Spanish sessions (sessions are categorized by language and by topic). This year, I am focusing all 10 workshop sessions I plan to attend on translation pedagogy or on sessions that in one way or another relate to Southern Nazarene University's B.A. in Spanish-English Translation.
Last night at the opening reception I spoke with a current student and a recent graduate of Kent State's M.A. in translation program. It was interesting to hear a little about that program and listen to the students' responses to some of my questions. One of the insights I walked away with is that real-world internships are very important in translator education. At Southern Nazarene University, we have an internship built into the program. However, I also want to continue exploring ways to involve students in real world translation scenarios from the very beginning of their translation studies. I'm looking forward to the rest of the convention and to what I can get out of it that I can take back to my students.
On another subject, if you haven't read Erin's and Rhea's latest blog posts from Costa Rica, check them out at http://erin-fitz.blogspot.com and http://rheaincostarica.blogspot.com.
Finally, congratulations to two of our Spanish majors (both double majors in Spanish and another area) who are studying abroad next semester. Paul James is going to Costa Rica and Stephanie Di Pego is going to Russia. ¡Felicitaciones a los dos!
As I write this, I am sitting in my room on the 21st floor of the New York Marriott Marquis. The hotel is located on Broadway in the heart of Times Square. My room is not on the Broadway side of the hotel, so I can't look out on Times Square from my window. However, I can see some of the theaters from my window. I'm planning on taking in a show or two while I'm here.
I'm in NY to attend the annual convention of the American Translators Association (ATA), which is also a celebration of the ATA's 50th anniversary. I love attending ATA conventions. For one thing, as I make my way through the mass of people during coffee breaks, I hear more languages than I can keep track of. Often, I have no idea what language is being spoken when I overhear a conversation. It must be kind of like going to a U.N. function. I love it. However, the best part of attending ATA conventions is the abundance of very practical workshop sessions they offer. The downside to that abundance is that you have to make hard choices. Typically there are 14-16 sessions running simultaneously at each time slot. For instance, the sessions start on Thursday and I am already faced with 54 different workshops I could attend just today. Multiply that by 3 (the convention runs through Saturday) and you can see how frustrating it is not to be able to be in two places at the same time. I am skipping the time slots devoted to plenary ATA business sessions so that I can get some other work done (like write this blog post), which leaves me the opportunity to attend 10 sessions over 3 days. (No evening sessions other than opening and closing receptions, which gives time for exploring, seeing shows and generally just getting out and about.) In the past, I usually have concentrated on the Spanish sessions (sessions are categorized by language and by topic). This year, I am focusing all 10 workshop sessions I plan to attend on translation pedagogy or on sessions that in one way or another relate to Southern Nazarene University's B.A. in Spanish-English Translation.
Last night at the opening reception I spoke with a current student and a recent graduate of Kent State's M.A. in translation program. It was interesting to hear a little about that program and listen to the students' responses to some of my questions. One of the insights I walked away with is that real-world internships are very important in translator education. At Southern Nazarene University, we have an internship built into the program. However, I also want to continue exploring ways to involve students in real world translation scenarios from the very beginning of their translation studies. I'm looking forward to the rest of the convention and to what I can get out of it that I can take back to my students.
On another subject, if you haven't read Erin's and Rhea's latest blog posts from Costa Rica, check them out at http://erin-fitz.blogspot.com and http://rheaincostarica.blogspot.com.
Finally, congratulations to two of our Spanish majors (both double majors in Spanish and another area) who are studying abroad next semester. Paul James is going to Costa Rica and Stephanie Di Pego is going to Russia. ¡Felicitaciones a los dos!
Saturday, October 3, 2009
¡Nicaragua!
[http://www.goglobalatsnu.blogspot.com/]
If you are not following Erin's, Destry's & Rhea's blogs from the Latin American Studies Program in Costa Rica, you are missing out on some tremendous experiences. I just read Rhea's post about her time in Nicaragua. Her post shows how study abroad experiences start changing your life long before you get back to the U.S. Read it at http://rheaincostarica.blogspot.com/.
If you are not following Erin's, Destry's & Rhea's blogs from the Latin American Studies Program in Costa Rica, you are missing out on some tremendous experiences. I just read Rhea's post about her time in Nicaragua. Her post shows how study abroad experiences start changing your life long before you get back to the U.S. Read it at http://rheaincostarica.blogspot.com/.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Are you a nitwitted monolingual boor with overweight kids?
[http://www.goglobalatsnu.blogspot.com/]
The question is mine. The quote is from an Op Ed piece by Lisa Degliantoni on Newspaper Tree (http://www.newspapertree.com/opinion/4215-degliantoni-your-parents-not-telemundo-will-make-you-multilingual). In a very personal and opinionated way, which makes for entertaining reading, Lisa states her case that everybody in the U.S. should embrace bilingualism. She jumps on monolinguals who think that neither they nor their children should bother to learn another language, and she compares them to parents who never teach their children that apples and exercise are good and junk food and sitting on the couch all day are bad.
Lisa outlines her own linguistic and cultural heritage involving her maternal grandparents who immigrated from France. Although Lisa's grandmother spoke French at work, home and in her social life, and barely spoke English, she taught very little French to Lisa's mother. Lisa's mother, in turn, did not teach French to Lisa. Lisa says, "[B]y the time my generation came around we knew no French and embraced the culture in only three ways; we celebrated Bastille Day, drank red wine and went to annual parties at the Alliance Francais."
Lisa now finds herself in El Paso and surrounded by people who take speaking two languages fluently as a natural occurrence. It is a natural occurrence for them because they grew up speaking two languages as part of the environment in which they lived. Lisa says that she is trying to rectify her monolingual heritage by studying Spanish at a community college in El Paso. I wish her luck.
One of the most important tasks that I am trying to accomplish at Southern Nazarene University is to be a part of the cure for the monolingualism that infects our campus and campus culture. I say part of the cure because a lot of other people are making great strides forward. The intensive English programs for foreign students help those who want to study at SNU and need to develop the English skills required for university-level study. From my perspective, it is just as important that the intensive English programs make possible a multilingual presence on campus, a presence that challenges English-speaking students to open up to a large part of the non-English-speaking world. The International Studies Program (ISP) attracts foreign students who come to SNU to study and who also make a multilingual and multicultural impact on campus. The ISP also attracts U.S students who want to be part of the global community and are willing to make the commitment to develop the business, history, political science and language & culture skills they need to compete and contribute in that community. I'm also very excited about Dr. Don Dunnington's new role in promoting global engagement by all SNU students. Great things are going to happen as part of that initiative.
We haven't found the cure for SNU's monolingualism, but we're making progress, and its fun to be part of the cure.
JUST SAY "NO" TO MONOLINGUALISM. LEARN ANOTHER LANGUAGE.
The question is mine. The quote is from an Op Ed piece by Lisa Degliantoni on Newspaper Tree (http://www.newspapertree.com/opinion/4215-degliantoni-your-parents-not-telemundo-will-make-you-multilingual). In a very personal and opinionated way, which makes for entertaining reading, Lisa states her case that everybody in the U.S. should embrace bilingualism. She jumps on monolinguals who think that neither they nor their children should bother to learn another language, and she compares them to parents who never teach their children that apples and exercise are good and junk food and sitting on the couch all day are bad.
Lisa outlines her own linguistic and cultural heritage involving her maternal grandparents who immigrated from France. Although Lisa's grandmother spoke French at work, home and in her social life, and barely spoke English, she taught very little French to Lisa's mother. Lisa's mother, in turn, did not teach French to Lisa. Lisa says, "[B]y the time my generation came around we knew no French and embraced the culture in only three ways; we celebrated Bastille Day, drank red wine and went to annual parties at the Alliance Francais."
Lisa now finds herself in El Paso and surrounded by people who take speaking two languages fluently as a natural occurrence. It is a natural occurrence for them because they grew up speaking two languages as part of the environment in which they lived. Lisa says that she is trying to rectify her monolingual heritage by studying Spanish at a community college in El Paso. I wish her luck.
One of the most important tasks that I am trying to accomplish at Southern Nazarene University is to be a part of the cure for the monolingualism that infects our campus and campus culture. I say part of the cure because a lot of other people are making great strides forward. The intensive English programs for foreign students help those who want to study at SNU and need to develop the English skills required for university-level study. From my perspective, it is just as important that the intensive English programs make possible a multilingual presence on campus, a presence that challenges English-speaking students to open up to a large part of the non-English-speaking world. The International Studies Program (ISP) attracts foreign students who come to SNU to study and who also make a multilingual and multicultural impact on campus. The ISP also attracts U.S students who want to be part of the global community and are willing to make the commitment to develop the business, history, political science and language & culture skills they need to compete and contribute in that community. I'm also very excited about Dr. Don Dunnington's new role in promoting global engagement by all SNU students. Great things are going to happen as part of that initiative.
We haven't found the cure for SNU's monolingualism, but we're making progress, and its fun to be part of the cure.
JUST SAY "NO" TO MONOLINGUALISM. LEARN ANOTHER LANGUAGE.
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