Introducing Iddi Iddi Saaka is a dancer, choreographer, drummer, dance teacher, and performer from Ghana. He earned his diploma at the University of Ghana, then came to the United States to attend UCLA for his Master’s in Fine Arts. In 2008, Iddi applied and gained the position of West African Dance professor at Wesleyan. In…
A globally-engaged researcher, collaborator, and scientist, Teresita (Tere) Padilla-Benavides is an Assistant Professor of Molecular Biology & Biochemistry committed to increasing access to the sciences and centering culturally diverse research. Tere conducts biochemistry research at the Hall-Atwater building, but her outreach spreads far beyond the lab, campus, and borders of the US to increase access…
Like many American college students, I could not decide what to focus on in college! My parents were born in Germany during World War II and immigrated to the US as adults. My father had an engineering degree from Germany, but as a refugee, my mother only managed to complete an eighth-grade education. I was born in…
The Fries Center for Global Studies and Department of Less Commonly Taught Languages is pleased to welcome Assistant Professor of American Sign Language, Pedro Pascual Villanueva! A teacher at heart, Pascual’s lifelong career focuses on sign language teaching, as both L1 and L2. Pascual strives to keep abreast of the best practices in teaching languages…
Megan Levan, Environmental Studies and South Asia Studies in a Global Context, Class of ’22 This summer, I got the opportunity to attend the Insects to Feed the World Conference in Quebec City, Canada, to continue my journey with entomophagy. Entomophagy is the practice of eating insects. There are currently over 2,000 species of insects…
Exploring Denmark… and the Earliest Origins of the UniverseBlog post prepared by Shiven Sankalia (’24), Fellowships Assistant, Spring 2022, with additions and edits by Dr. Erica Kowsz, Assistant Director for Fellowships at the Fries Center for Global Studies David Vizgan is a Wesleyan alum currently on a Fulbright Scholarship in Denmark. David graduated in 2021…
The Wesleyan Refugee Project (WRP), a student-run group at Wesleyan University hoping to bring awareness to issues affecting displaced people world-wide, is holding several consecutive events on “The Contemporary Refugee Crisis” by invited guests for Advocacy Week. Come sit in on one of the lectures to learn about the most relevant challenges that refugees…
A new Minor in Human Rights Advocacy to be launched this fall. As a student at Wesleyan, you are eligible to participate in this unique program. Please note that the deadline to apply is Wednesday, March 23. The Minor builds on the pilot program in human rights advocacy developed over the past several years in conjunction with the University…
Want to better understand what the Fries Center does and the opportunities to collaborate with us? Check out our 2020-2021 Annual Report. The “Executive Summary” from that report follows; for the rest of the report, follow that link! Executive Summary The pandemic-induced pause on study abroad coupled with the arrival of two new colleagues meant…
Dear Wesleyan community, As the summer kicks off, I would like to champion Wesleyan’s ‘Worlds of Dance’ Spring (May 2021) concert – now available in a recording for us all to enjoy. Here is the link to the entire concert: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ED-w4zf2H4 The concert showcases Wesleyan’s magnificent students who performed – with passion, skill and engagement…
