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Adair-Hauck Earns Prestigous Pedagogy Award

 

by Gavin Jenkins

Newsletter Editor

During her childhood, Bonnie Adair-Hauck’s father often brought foreign guests home for dinner.  An international engineer, James R. Hauck was teaching the guests how to build steel mills.  Sitting at the dinner table, listening to guests from France and Japan, Adair-Hauck became fascinated by foreign language. 

            That fascination launched her into a career in academia.  She earned her PhD in foreign/second language education and applied linguistics with a specialization in Vygotskian psycholinguistics from the University of Pittsburgh in 1993.

            For her contributions to the education of foreign language teachers throughout her career, Adair-Hauck has been named the 2012 recipient of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages-New York State Association of Foreign Language Teachers (ACTFL-NYSAFLT) Anthony Papalia Award for Excellence in Teacher Education.

            Since 1994, Adair-Hauck has been a research associate at the European Union Center of Excellence/European Studies Center at the University of Pittsburgh, specializing in second language learning and acquisition. 

            “I am thrilled,” Adair-Hauck said.  “It’s so exciting.  I couldn’t have done it without my family.  Without their support, I wouldn’t be getting this award.”

            Adair-Hauck also expressed gratitude toward the EUCE/ESC, specifically Director Ronald Linden and Vice-Provost Alberta Sbragia, the former director who recruited her in 1994, for supporting her work. 

            “The EUCE/ESC has done a lot for me,” Adair-Hauck said.  “Since Alberta brought me on for research in ’94, the Center has really given me help.  It has really supported the oral proficiency workshops we have done.”

            Adair-Hauck attributes her passion for foreign language education to those dinner table conversations from her childhood.  However, when she took French in ninth grade, the language she was taught in the classroom sounded nothing like the French she heard at home.

            “It was rote learning, grammar translation,” Adair-Hauck said.  “Learning a second language is a series of mistakes.  My teacher wanted error-free language.  She was doing what she thought was best, but we now know that’s the opposite of how to teach a foreign language.  A low affective filter is needed.”

            Adair-Hauck has helped foreign language educators across the country at all levels – from elementary school teachers to college professors – make changes to their curricula based on the importance of low affective filter, which refers to the amount of anxiety or stress involved in the learning process.

            Her pedagogy classes feature the use of storytelling to teach communication and grammar, but she attributes her success with innovative methods to “hitting the field at the right time.”  She has worked as a consultant, conference presenter, and instructor, and has published articles and manuals based on her research. 

            In 1989, while at La Roche College, she began using Oral Proficiency Interviews (OPI) as a way to test students.  In the 1990s, at the University of Pittsburgh, she taught Simulated Oral Proficiency Interviews (SOPI) to foreign language teachers. 

            “SOPI is an indirect form of assessment,” Adair-Hauck said.  “A student hears a tape recorder and speaks back.”

            SOPI became popular as the internet emerged as a prevalent educational tool.  Once the SOPI online forms were used in the Pittsburgh Public Schools, teachers were able to set benchmarks for their students.

            “A teacher can see what level a student is on and how they are progressing,” Adair-Hauck said.

            The evolution of performance evaluation continued in the 2000s, and Adair-Hauck was right there to help foreign language teachers become more effective with Integrated Performance Assessment (IPA), which rates student performance in the three modes of communication: interpretive, interpersonal and presentational.

            Adair-Hauck believes in the methodology behind IPA, SOPI and OPI because it encourages students to “speak on their feet,” and the educators she has taught to use these processes have given her the kind of feedback that is as gratifying as an award.

            “Teachers thank me and tell me they know where each student is and how they are progressing,” Adair-Hauck said.

            Adair-Hauck was presented with the ACTFL-NYSAFLT Anthony Papalia Award for Excellence in Foreign Language on Nov. 16 at the Marriott in Philadelphia. €

 

 

Annual New York Trip Enlightens  

 

By Gavin Jenkins

Newsletter Editor

 

On Oct. 16-17, the Modern Europe Freshmen Learning Community held its annual New York City trip.  The trip is sponsored by the European Union Center of Excellence/European Studies Center and the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh.

            The Learning Community is for incoming freshmen who are interested in European Studies.  All of the students take a common set of courses, Western Civilization 2 and World Politics.  In addition, they meet once a week with co-instructors, EUCE/ESC Associate Director Allyson Delnore and Assistant Director Stephen Lund, and are introducted to university resources through the lens of their interests in Europe.  The purpose of the trip is to explore opportunities beyond the university with a focus on Europe.

            “The whole experience was great,” said Nadia Pacheco Amaro, 18, who was born in Mexico, and then moved to Arcadia, Calif. 

            The first stop on the New York trip was the United Nations, where Amaro has wanted to work since she saw “The Rescuers” as a child.  “The Rescuers” is a Disney movie about an international mouse organization that shadows the United Nations.

            “Since I was 6, I’ve just loved the idea of all these nations coming together to solve problems,” Amaro said. “I want to work there and be a part of that, and because of this trip, I’m going to focus on that.”

            While on tour at the United Nations, the students witnessed a meeting in the General Assembly, according to freshman Corinne Le Lan, 18, of Media, Pa.

            “It was cool to see the General Assembly,” Le Lan said.  “There were about 20 to 30 countries there, and the countries were from all over the world.  It was very interesting to see.  And we learned about all the different programs in the United Nations, which I didn’t know much about.”

            The second stop on the trip was the International Institute for Education (IIE), which is across the street from the United Nations.  The IIE is home to numerous scholarship programs, including Fulbright Grants to research, study, or teach in Europe.  Tony Claudino, Director of Fulbright Student Program Outreach, spoke to the students about study abroad scholarships and resources, highlighting opportunities to travel to Europe. In particular, he urged students with interests in Eastern European languages or Portuguese to apply for Critical Language and Boren Scholarships and Fellowships.

            Peter Kerrigan, Deputy Director of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) New York office, informed the students about German-related resources that are available through DAAD to graduate and undergraduate students interested in studying or doing research in Germany.  The DAAD also places students in internships with the German Parliament, the Bundestag.

            “I never knew how much funding there is from Germany to get students from the United States to Germany.  It was enlightening,” Amaro said.

            The final stop was the Delegation of the European Commission to the United Nations.  Roland Tricot, the First Counsel of Legal and Disarmament Affairs, gave a presentation about how the European Union works at the United Nations, what the delegation does, and key issues they have been dealing with. 

            “The way he described problem solving was very interesting,” Amaro said of Tricot.  “A lot of people think that talking doesn’t do anything, and that actions speak louder than words, but he said speaking sometimes is doing something because it’s bringing to light all these different problems that people have.”

            This was the seventh year for the New York trip, and Lund said the trip “really helps students with European interests hit the ground running in their first year of school.” €

 

The European Parliament Up Close

Two Students Benefit from Scholarship 

 

By Gavin Jenkins

Newsletter Editor

 

Undergraduates Morgan Walbert and Sally Stadelman each received Mark Nordenberg Internship Abroad Scholarships from the European Union Center of Excellence/European Studies Center at the University of Pittsburgh last spring.

            The scholarship is given to cover a portion of the travel and living expenses for two students who have secured internships abroad.  Walbert and Stadelman, who are both European Union Certificate Students, were awarded the scholarship after they earned internships with the European Parliament in Brussels.

            However, their experiences working for the European Parliament last June could not have been more different.  Fluent in Spanish, Stadelman spent a lot of her time translating documents for Jurgen Klute, a German MEP who is a member of the Confederal Group of the European United Left – Nordic Green Left.  Stadelman interacted with Klute, but not on a daily basis.  For the most part, she worked alongside one of his assistants.

            Walbert, on the other hand, worked for Davor Bozinovic, a Croatian observer.  Croatia has 12 observers at the European Parliament, and while they participate in committees, they will not be allowed to take part in decision making until the accession of Croatia to the European Union is complete in the summer of 2013.

Last summer, Bozinovic did not have a staff of assistants, as Klute did.  He only had Walbert, a 20 year-old Political Science and History major from Cumberland, MD.

            “My job description was basically do everything that he did,” said Walbert a junior.

            The two shared an office, and Bozinovic refused to sit at the bigger of the two desks, opting for a small one located in the corner.

            “It was not what I expected at all,” Wallbert said.

            Bozinovic is the former Minister of Defense for Croatia, and from 2005-2008, he was the Head of Mission to NATO for his country.  Yet Walbert described him as “very informal.”  Since Walbert didn’t work with any other interns, he made sure she was introduced to the students working for the other Croatian observers.

            Bozinovic’s courtesies in regards to seating arrangements continued.  The first time Walbert accompanied him to a committee meeting, there was a large semicircular table in the center of the room and chairs along a back wall for assistants.  Each seat at the main table had a nametag in front of it indicating who was supposed to sit there.

            “Davor moved the nametag of someone he knew wasn’t going to be there,” Walbert said.  “He told me to sit there, and then he said, ‘You’re the newest member of the Party.’”

            Bozinovic allowed Walbert to accompany him to a private meeting with US Ambassador to the European Union, William Kennard.  She even helped him write a speech he gave in English at a conference about European Union expansion.

            “There were reporters there and everything, so it was a big deal,” Walbert said.  “Sitting in the audience, listening to him say the words I wrote, it was a heart pounding experience.”

            Though Stadelman, didn’t interact with as many politicians as Walbert, she did get to work for an MEP who was invested in a topic she cares deeply about – the European Union’s relationship with South America.

            On top of translating, Stadelman, a Political Science major who is minoring in Spanish, wrote a lot of press releases for Klute’s office.  She also helped stage a protest outside the Paraguayan Embassy in Brussels after Paraguay’s Congress ousted President Fernando Lugo in June in what some called a parliamentary coup.

            “About 20 to 30 people who worked for the European Parliament showed up to condemn the coup,” Stadelman said.  “It was interesting to see.”

            Klute’s office also wanted to stop a Free Trade Agreement between the European Union and Columbia and Peru.  

            “We didn’t have a chance to stop it,” Stadelman said.  “The party I worked for was the most left party in Parliament.  They had 34 members of a parliament [out] of over 600.  They had some radical ideas, like a 20-hour work week.  I learned a lot from working for them.  To see the essence of a parliamentary system was to see that the smaller groups were still able to get their foot in the door.”

            Walbert and Stadelman, who are now roommates in Pittsburgh, were studying at Freiburg University in Germany last spring when they landed the internships.  They were placed in their respective offices by Frank Schwalba-Hoth, a former MEP and founding member of the German Greens.

            Stadelman, a senior from Washington, Pa., praised Schwalba-Hoth for placing the interns in offices that coincided with their interests. 

            “It was a dream come true that I ended up working in that office,” Stadelman said. 

            Stadelman is scheduled to graduate in December, while Walbert plans to spend her senior year studying at the Paris-based Institut d’Études Politiques (Sciences Po).  Both students expressed gratitude to the EUCE/ESC for awarding them the Mark Nordenberg Internship Abroad Scholarship.

            “I was able to have a personal view of the Parliament,” Walbert said.  “It’s very different to be there and see it in person than it is to read about it in a book.”€

 

Upcoming Grant and Fellowship Deadlines

 

Two EUCE/ESC Faculty Grant

Opportunities

The EUCE/ESC invites applications for the following Faculty Grant opportunities: 1) The 2012-13 EUCE Faculty Grant on the European Union Competition aims at strengthening faculty expertise on the European Union.  Grants are available for a variety of professional activities related to research, collaboration or conference participation, related in a broad or specific way to the European Union or its member states or societies. Grants will typically fall in the $3,000 to $7,000 range.  This grant is funded by the European Union  2) The 2012-13 European Studies Faculty Grant Competition.  These grants are available for a research, collaboration or conference participation on topics related to Europe but not focused on the European Union. Grants will typically fall in the $500 to $2,000 range. For more information and application procedures, please visit www.ucis.pitt.edu/euce/ and click on the tab  “For Faculty,” or contact Associate Director Allyson Delnore at adelnore@pitt.edu. Deadline: January 1, 2013.

 

Larry Neal Prize for Excellence in EU Scholarship

In honor of Professor Emeritus of Economics Larry Neal, the founding director of the European Union Center of Excellence at the University of Illinois, the Illinois EUCE created the Larry Neal Prize for Excellence in EU Scholarship with generous support from our EUCE grant.  We are seeking nominations of books (including edited volumes) and articles written by faculty affiliated with EUCEs in the U.S. or Canada that address current issues faced by the European Union and in EU-US relations. Nominations are encouraged from all disciplinary fields.  Submissions will be evaluated by a rotating committee of representatives from the EUCE network. Submissions will be evaluated by a rotating committee of representatives from the EUCE network. The winning author(s) will receive an invitation to the University of Illinois campus for recognition and to present a lecture on the selected work.  Please see the following link for more details: http://www.euc.illinois.edu/larryneal.  Deadline: December 1, 2012. 

University of Pittsburgh Undergraduate Research Symposium 2013 on Europe: East and West

This Symposium is intended to provide advanced research experience to undergraduates and is modeled after conferences traditionally held at the graduate level for those interested in Western Europe, Eastern Europe, or Russia.  A selection committee determines which students qualify to present their papers at the Symposium at the University of Pittsburgh, Oakland campus.  At the event, participants will make 10-15 minute presentations on their research to a discussant and audience.  Participants will receive constructive feedback on their papers from the discussant.  The presentations are open to the public.  Final papers must be 10-15 pages in length.  For more information, contact Gina Peirce at gbpeirce@pitt.edu or visit the UCIS website: http://www.ucis.pitt.edu/ursymposium/. Deadline: January 28, 2013.

 

2013 EUSA Haas Fund Fellowship

Competition  

EUSA is offering at least one unrestricted fellowship of $1,500 to support the dissertation research of any graduate student pursuing an EU-related dissertation topic in the academic year 2012-2013.  Please note the following stipulations for applicants, who must: be pursuing the doctoral degree (PhD) at an accredited institution in any country; be writing a dissertation in English; have an EU-related, doctoral dissertation topic approved by the professor who will supervise it; and, be able to demonstrate clearly the relevance to EU studies of the dissertation topic.  Applicants should submit:(1) A one-page letter of application that specifies how the fellowship would be used; (2) A CV; (3) A two-page (500 words) précis of the dissertation research project that also explains its relevance to EU studies; and (4) Ask for two letters of support to be sent directly to EUSA. These letters should be from professors serving on the student’s dissertation committee, and one should be the chair.  Please send applications to eusa@pitt.edu and use the heading “2013 E.B. Haas Fund Fellowship competition.” Deadline: January 14, 2013.

 

New Affiliated Faculty

 

The European Union Center of Excellence/European Studies Center welcomes the University of Pittsburgh’s new Assistant Professor of Music, Dr. Emily Zazulia.  She is a specialist on Medieval and Renaissance Europe, with a particular focus on music notation, manuscript studies, and intellectual history.  Originally from Annapolis, Maryland, Zazulia completed her Ph.D. in Musicology at the University of Pennsylvania and her A.B. from Harvard University.  She is the recipient of a Mellon/ACLS dissertation completion fellowship and an Alvin H. Johnson AMS 50, awarded by the American Musicological Society.  In 2010, she was a Reader in Renaissance Studies at Villa I Tatti: Harvard University’s Center for Italian Renaissance Studies. Additionally, Zazulia remains an active singer and conductor of early music.

 

Researching Italian Immigration

Post World War I

 

by John Galante

PhD Candidate

 

With great excitement last summer, I embarked on a research trip to Italy with the assistance of a pre-dissertation fellowship from the European Union Center of Excellence/European Studies Center at the University of Pittsburgh. 

            On one hand, I felt extremely fortunate to have an opportunity to live and work in Italy.  Where else can one hear “next stop, Colosseum,” during the morning subway commute?  And, where else do the mountains and sea meet at such a marvelously dynamic port city as Genoa? 

            On the other hand, some of my excitement was related to anxiety.  I was challenged with the task of taking the ideas, interests and inferences I’d collected over the past several years, applying them to field research, and then constructing a well-defined and viable dissertation project by the end of August.  I am now delighted to say that I achieved this goal!

            The subject of my doctoral dissertation project will be the impact of World War I on Italian immigrant communities in South America and the transatlantic networks that connected those communities to their country of origin. Before I set out for Italy, I had an idea that this subject – and a few others I had in mind – might be an interesting line of research. But of course I needed to confirm that there existed a substantial bank of resources (in Italy and South America) from which I could draw to answer the most pertinent research questions. Fortunately, such sources are vast, varied and accessible.

            Rome’s extensive range of archives and libraries are filled with materials relevant to this research, from both the Italian and South American sides of the topic. The archive at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs holds the documents of the largest Italian government agency that oversaw overseas communities, while the Italian Army and Ministry of War archives contain papers that outline efforts to enlist soldiers and support from citizens residing overseas. The Library of Modern and Contemporary History in Rome hosts a World War I newspaper collection that includes dozens of Italian-language periodicals published in South America. The Center of Emigration Studies maintains a library of books and other publications from the period and from around the world. These are just a few examples of the sources I discovered during my time in Rome.

            The period of World War I is often omitted from historical analyses of the millions of Italian citizens who migrated especially to littoral Argentina, southeastern Brazil and Uruguay during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. This was, as one anthology of Italian immigration to Uruguay terms it, “the parentheses of war.” At best, the war receives passing reference and mostly serves as a mechanism for periodization around which a before and after are constructed. This is perhaps not surprising as migratory flows largely stopped during the war years.

            Yet the Italian government’s struggle to validate its position as a Great Power and “redeem” lands held by the Austro-Hungarian Empire had an immense impact on Italian immigrant communities, the activities of government and civil society institutions in Italy who collaborated with overseas migrants, and the multitude of economic, institutional and family networks that traversed the Atlantic. The Italian government and Italian organizations in cities such as Buenos Aires, Montevideo and São Paulo cooperated to recruit soldiers, deliver aid to those soldiers’ families, raise money to support the war effort, and organize patriotic rallies throughout South America. Meanwhile, Italian labor federations in the region, and anarchists in particular, rallied against “aggressive and bestial” militarism, to use the words of the São Paulo-based anarchist newspaper Guerra Sociale.  The war tested loyalties, relationships and identities in the Americas, in Italy and across the Atlantic.

            One obstacle I encountered last summer was the decentralized structure of Italian historical archives, despite the presence of several large institutions in Rome. My research also took me to the Paolo Cresci Foundation in Lucca, where there is an archive of emigrant letters and photos; the Ligurian Archive of Popular Writing in Genoa; and the archive of Milanese social welfare institution Società Umanitaria, which provided assistance to emigrants outside Italy and when they returned. These and other locations hold resources that will be essential pieces of my research. They were accessible in large part because of the financial assistance I received from the EUCE/ESC pre-dissertation fellowship.

            As I’m preparing my dissertation overview and grant funding proposals that will finance my doctoral research, I realize my chances have been improved by what I learned during my trip to Italy last summer. €