Events in UCIS

Thursday, April 8 until Friday, April 8

8:00 am Conference
Georgia Consortium: Exploring the Complexities of Vietnam
Location:
Online via Zoom
Sponsored by:
Asian Studies Center
See Details

Register here.

Thursday, October 7

10:00 am Cultural Event
CANCELLED: Coffee & Culture
Location:
University of Pittsburgh Greensburg Campus, Millstein Library outdoor patio
Sponsored by:
International Week along with University of Pittsburgh Greensburg Campus
See Details

As part of the Greensburg campus Blue & Gold Celebration and the University of Pittsburgh International Week, students, staff, faculty, and alumni are invited to sample coffee from different coffee cultures around the world. In conjunction with the Library, different works of literature will be featured. Breakfast pastries will be available. Students who attend are eligible to be entered into a raffle for a pair of Beats earphones! Stop and grab a cup of coffee to go or stay and relax on the patio!

This event counts as Village Credit for Pitt Greensburg students.

11:30 am Lecture
How Europe (Mis)Understands Black America
Sponsored by:
European Studies Center and International Week
See Details

Europe's views on Black America are informed by a range of contradictory tendencies: amnesia about its own colonial past, ambivalence about its racial present, a tradition of anti-racism and international solidarity and an often fraught geo-political relationship with the United States itself. Europe both resents and covets American power, and is in little position to do anything about it. So African Americans represent to many a redemptive force– living proof that that US is both not all that it claims to be and could be so much greater than it is. This sense of superiority is made possible, in no small part, by a woefully, wilfully incomplete and toxically nostalgic understanding of Europoe's own history which has left significant room for denial, distortion, ignorance and sophistry. The result, in the post-war era, has been moments of solidarity often impaired by exocitisation or infantilisation in which Europe has found it easier to export anti-racism across the Atlantic than to practice it at home or export it across the Channel, the Mediterranean and beyond.

Gary Younge, author, broadcaster, and editor-at-large for The Guardian based in London, England will be delivering as talk on How Europe (Mis)Understands Black America as the 2021-22 Jean Monnet Center Distinguished Lecture. Gary Younge is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Manchester.

JMEUCE Distinguished Lecture Series.

This event is a part of International Week.

#JMintheUS

11:40 am Award Ceremony
FSDP Global Competence Certificate Celebration Ceremony
Sponsored by:
Director's Office and International Week
See Details

On Thursday, October 7 the University Center for International Studies will hold the second annual Global Competence Certificate Celebration Ceremony. This event will recognize faculty and staff who have completed all the requirements for the Global Competence Certificate, part of the Faculty and Staff Development Program offered by Human Resources. This is an on-campus event. Refreshments will be provided. Invitations with location details will be sent to this year’s graduates. Please contact Ian McLaughlin at globalsupport@pitt.edu for any questions.

The Global Competence Certificate program is an initiative started by the University Center for International Studies (UCIS) that is part of the Human Resources FSDP (Faculty Staff Development Program) here at Pitt. This series of workshops prepares faculty and staff in increasing their international scope as well as their on-the-job experience with a diverse group of colleagues, students, and collaborators. The certificate program is now entering its third year and we will have two cohorts of participants who have completed the program.

12:00 pm Lecture
The Cold War from the Margins
Location:
Zoom
Sponsored by:
Center for Russian East European and Eurasian Studies
See Details

The Cold War is often narrowly viewed as a binary struggle: The US versus the USSR. But what did the Cold War look like from the perspective of a small socialist state—Bulgaria—and its cultural engagements with the Balkans, the West, and the Third World? In the 1970s, Bulgaria's communist leadership invested heavily in cultural diplomacy to bolster its legitimacy at home and promote its agendas abroad. The Cold War bloc mentality was thus transcended: Bulgaria's relations with Greece and Austria warmed, émigrés once considered enemies were embraced, and new cultural ties were forged with India, Mexico, and Nigeria. This live interview with Theodora Dragostinova will discuss at the Cold War from the margins and how it shaped the global 1970s.

Register via Zoom: https://pitt.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_gSHD0VGsRc-IsBWIOVquMQ

2:00 pm Lecture
The Cold War from the Margins
Location:
Zoom
Sponsored by:
Center for Russian East European and Eurasian Studies along with Center for Russian East European and Eurasian Studies on behalf of Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University, the Institute of Slavic East European and Eurasian Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, the Russian East European & Eurasian Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Russian and East European Institute at Indiana University, the Center for Russian East European & Eurasian Studies at the University of Michigan, the Center for Russian East European and Eurasian Studies at The University of Texas at Austin, the Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Center at Indiana University, the Center for Russia East Europe and Central Asia at the University of Wisconsin – Madison and the Center for East European and Russian/Eurasian Studies at The University of Chicago and the Center for Slavic and East European Studies at The Ohio State University
See Details

Presenting Bulgaria’s cultural engagements with multiple actors in the Third World, this talk by Dr. Theodora Dragostinova (Ohio State University) highlights the global reach of state socialism, demonstrates the existence of vibrant partnerships along an East-South axis during the 1970s, and challenges notions of late socialism as the prelude to communist collapse in eastern Europe.

Zoom registration: https://osu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_tXaeNufPSGKoJM2a3-WIXQ

This event is part of the Area Studies Lecture Series presented by the 2018-2021 U.S. Department of Education Title VI National Resource Center and Foreign Language and Area Studies grant recipients for Russia, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia.

4:00 pm Cultural Event
Virtual International Speed Friending
Sponsored by:
Global Experiences Office and International Week along with English Language Institute, University of Pittsburgh Greensburg Campus and University of Pittsburgh Bradford Campus
See Details

Whether you’re an international student at Pitt looking to make American friends or a native speaker of English interested in meeting people from different cultures, this FREE virtual event hosted by the English Language Institute on the Pittsburgh campus in collaboration with Pitt Bradford and Pitt Greensburg is perfect for you! 

If you’ve ever heard of “Speed Dating,” this is similar. The only difference is that the objective here is to make friends. We’ll be using an online gaming-like platform called “Gatheround” in which participants will be put into breakout rooms to play a card game of questions for eight minutes to get to know each other. After eight minutes, a timer will go off and the participants will be assigned to another breakout room to talk with someone else. At the end of the event, participants anonymously decide if they’d like to exchange contact information. Advance registration is required.

Celebrate International Week at Pitt with the start of new cross-cultural friendships! For more information about this event, contact the English Language Institute or visit the International Week website.

6:00 pm Film
CLAS Film Series: Stateless
Sponsored by:
Center for Latin American Studies
See Details

Runtime: 1h 36min
Filmmaker/Director:Michèle Stephenson
Dominican Republic, 2020 | Documentary

In 1937, tens of thousands of Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent were exterminated by the Dominican army, based on anti-black hatred fomented by the Dominican government. Fast-forward to 2013, the Dominican Republic’s Supreme Court stripped the citizenship of anyone with Haitian parents, retroactive to 1929. The ruling rendered more than 200,000 people stateless, without nationality, identity or a homeland. In this dangerous climate, a young attorney named Rosa Iris mounts a grassroots campaign, challenging electoral corruption and advocating for social justice. Director Michèle Stephenson’s new documentary Stateless traces the complex tributaries of history and present-day politics, as state-sanctioned racism seeps into mundane offices, living room meetings, and street protests. At a time when extremist ideologies are gaining momentum in the U.S. and around the world, STATELESS is a warning of what can happen in a society when racism runs rampant in the government.

6:30 pm Film
Back to the Wharf
Location:
125 Frick Fine Arts Auditorium
Sponsored by:
Asian Studies Center and International Week along with Office of the Chancellor and Film and Media Studies Program
See Details

The first annual SCREENSHOT: ASIA Film Festival will take place October 6-10, 2021. In its inaugural year, the Festival will screen features from all over Asia as well as highlight some lesser-known Asian filmmakers through a shorts program.

Synopsis for "Back to the Wharf": Fifteen years ago, Song fled his hometown to avoid a murder rap. After he returns home, he becomes mired in a world of greed and corruption through his ex-best friend—and only witness to the old murder.

For more information about the film festival click here

To register, click here

7:00 pm Cultural Event
Global Trivia with SAYAC
Location:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScnCU-aaX3rxFvlxLXy6J11TmM581Q9LuZmSeYo22TpzPU9_Q/viewform?usp=sf_link
Sponsored by:
Global Experiences Office and International Week along with Study Abroad Young Alumni Council
See Details

Join the Study Abroad Young Alumni Council (SAYAC) to test your global knowledge! Register here.

8:00 pm Student Club Activity
Persian Language Table
Location:
Global Hub - 1st Floor Posvar
Sponsored by:
Global Hub along with Less-Commonly-Taught-Languages Center
See Details

Join the Persian Language Table every other Thursday at the Global Hub!

8:30 pm Film
As We Like It
Location:
Posvar Patio
Sponsored by:
Asian Studies Center and International Week along with Office of the Chancellor and Film and Media Studies Program
See Details

The first annual SCREENSHOT: ASIA Film Festival will take place October 6-10, 2021. In its inaugural year, the Festival will screen features from all over Asia as well as highlight some lesser-known Asian filmmakers through a shorts program.

A retelling of Shakespeare’s As You Like It, the Taiwanese movie As We Like It critiques the exclusion of women in Shakespeare classics and asks viewers to question life beyond the gender binary.

For more information about the film festival, click here

To register for this event, click here

Thursday, October 7 until Friday, October 8

6:00 pm Conference
Career Center Presentation: Smart Strategies for the Job and Internship Search
Sponsored by:
Office of International Services and International Week along with Career Center and CCLD
See Details

International Student Career Conference will be held virtually on Thursday, October 7 and Friday, October 8, 2021. The conference includes four dynamic sessions over the course of two days. Please RSVP here!

CAREER CENTER PRESENTATION:

SMART STRATEGIES FOR THE JOB AND INTERNSHIP SEARCH

Thursday, October 7th

6-7p.m. ET

Learn about the career center’s changes to a virtual format, job and internship search advice and more helpful career tips.

EMPLOYMENT OPTIONS FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS

Thursday, October 7th

7-8 p.m. ET

An Immigration Specialist from the Student Team in OIS will explain the types of employment students are eligible to accept while in F-1 and J-1 status. This will include information about on-campus employment, curricular practical training (CPT), optional practical training (OPT), and Academic Training (AT).

ALUMNI AND EMPLOYER PANEL

Friday, October 8th

9-10 a.m. ET

Meet alumni who used to be international students at Pitt just like you. They have experienced internships, job applications, the visa process, and work life and can answer your questions. Plus, you’ll hear from Chris Butor, Team Lead at Ansys Engineering Simulation & 3D Design Software company.

IMMIGRATION ATTORNEY SESSION

Friday, October 8th

10-11 a.m. ET