Hi everyone! My name is Romane and I am one of the French FLTAs for the 2022-2023 academic year. I was born in Vendée, a region located on the west coast of France, but now I live and study in Paris. I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English after completing a three-year program in…
Countries
Meet Iddrisu Saaka, Assistant Professor of Dance
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 summer playing in the dirt: A day in the life as an excavation volunteer at Tel Shimron, Israel
Life at the field school I lived at for the summer began to stir well before the daylight hours in the Jezreel Valley. Each morning, I rolled out of bed at 4am, donned my mud-stained clothes, and stumbled down the stairs in a sleepy stupor for first breakfast, which consisted of a sad cup of…
FLTA Series: Introducing Elena Rota
Hey everybody!This is Elena and I’ll be the Italian FLTA for this academic year at Wesleyan. I was born and raised in Bologna, Italy, a city considered to be the Italian capital of food and home to the oldest University in the western world. I study Foreign Languages and Literatures, in particular the English and…
Meet Teresita Padilla-Benavides, Assistant Professor of Molecular Biology & Biochemistry
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…
FLTA Series: Introducing Rachel Urbano Querol
Hey! Welcome everyone! This is Rachel, one of the Spanish Foreign Language Teaching Assistants for the 2022-2023 academic year at Wes. I am from Madrid, a beautiful city that never sleeps, has a bar in every corner, and happiness in every street. Today has been 1 month and 1 day since I arrived in Middletown.…
Check out these events taking place for Navaratri!
The annual Navaratri Festival is now in its 46th year! This year, there is a wide range of film, music, dance and visual art to explore from Sept 28-Oct 2. This cherished tradition– which is supported by a committee of community members and the Wesleyan music, dance, film departments and the CFA– celebrates Indian art and…
Meet Anita Deeg-Carlin, our new Associate Director of Intercultural Learning, and learn about the Global Engagement Minor!
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…
Spotlight on Pedro Pascual Villanueva, our new Assistant Professor of American Sign Language
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…
A Place as Old as Time Itself
Nick Bowman, Class of 2023, spent Fall 2021 in Scotland, Spring 2022 in the Turks and Caicos Islands, and Summer 2022 in Jerusalem studying abroad. The dulcet tones of our pilot’s southern drawl announcing our approach to the Charlotte airport after a semester abroad in the Turks and Caicos Islands seems a distant memory as…