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…
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…
What is IEW? Taking place from this year from Saturday, November 12, to Friday, November 18, IEW is a week-long event at Wesleyan that aims to increase awareness of and promote global learning opportunities within and outside of Wesleyan; preserve and celebrate our interconnected cultural and linguistic heritages and shared environment; foster togetherness via intercultural…
by Dylan Campos ’24 On Friday, September 30, 2022, the International News Group held its inaugural meeting at the Fries Center for Global Studies common room. In conjunction with the FCGS and the Shapiro Writing Center, students, faculty, and staff met to share their interests in current global affairs, international media messaging, and multicultural learning…
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…
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…
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.…
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…
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…
Listed below are courses taking place this fall that relate to global or international themes that are still available for students to register for. Be sure to check them out before the available spots fill up! AFAM267 The Caribbean in Relation One of the main questions that we will address throughout the course is what…
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…
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…
The Fries Center for Global Studies is happy to give a warm welcome back to Verónica Socorro Matos from the class of 2021 as the Global Language and Outreach Fellow! Verónica graduated Wes with a double major in Romance Languages and Studio Art, with concentrations in French, Spanish, and Printmaking, respectively. After having spent the…
by Ayer Richmond ’24 and Edmund Josef Jurado ’24 The Africana Research Collective (ARC) is a new initiative led by First-Generation, Low Income/Black, Indigenous, Students of Color and Allies (FGLI/BIPOC+) at Wesleyan. ARC is composed of 7 second-year students from across the three academic divisions. Our sense of the African diaspora is global in reach,…
As you’re packing your bags and getting ready to begin your US academic journey, let us help you prepare with “Academia, Culture, and Campus Life:What to Expect at Wes,” a free Coursera Course offered by Wesleyan in conjunction with the Shapiro Center for Writing and the Office of International Student Affairs. The course was developed…
