With each global health crisis, the interconnectedness of populations around the globe becomes more pronounced. Diseases not only affect the health of communities, but they have a profound impact on political, economic, and social stability within countries and regions. This course engages the interdisciplinary nature of global health by approaching the issue through the lens of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) developed by the United Nations. The SDGs range in focus from good health and well-being to gender equality to clean water and sanitation to affordable, clean energy. By engaging the ways that health has a stake in these goals, the course will bring the expertise of faculty from the University of Pittsburgh and CMU as well as practitioners to understand and address the issue surrounding global health from a myriad of perspectives and avenues. With an applied focus, the course will assist students in engaging and advocating for a community on a global health issue through a policy memo. This iteration of the course will examine gender equality and SDG #5.
Week of March 1, 2020 in UCIS
Friday, November 1 until Sunday, May 3
Sunday, March 1
Global Academic Partnership (GAP) grants aim to amplify the Global Studies Center's transnational themes (Global Health, Migrations, and Cities in Transformation) through interdisciplinary research collaborations, curriculum development, student exchanges, and other scholarly endeavors that enhance the University of Pittsburgh's global profile. One grant in the amount of $40,000 will be awarded to support ongoing campus programming in a variety of innovative formats that enriches the intellectual environment at Pitt over the course of two years ($10,000 in the first year and $30,000 in the second).
This award is generously sponsored by the Office of the Provost and the University Center for International Studies to help Pitt faculty develop meaningful institutional partnerships with foreign universities, governments, international organizations, NGOs, and/or think-tanks. Faculty from all schools and disciplines are encouraged to apply.
Review the grant guidelines, complete the application form, and submit your application online visit the Global Studies Center homepage.
Monday, March 2
Do you have questions about completing your e-portfolio for your UCIS certificate? Advisors and students will be available to introduce you to the template, help you brainstorm what to say, and answer any tech questions you may have.
This language table has been moved online. Please contact Katya via Skype @katya.kovaleva1 during the usual meeting time of Monday's from 12:45PM-2:45PM OR email Katya directly (katya.kovaleva@gmail.com)
Improve and practice your Russian language skills with instructor Katya Kovaleva.
Global supply chains link consumers, brands, manufacturers, workers, and local community members as "stakeholders" with significantly different levels of risk and benefit. When harm occurs in the course of business activity, prevailing approaches to stakeholders consultation are typically driven by companies, without significant input from people at the grassroots level.
This talk reveals where stakeholder consultation is taking place globally; how the process unfolds at the community level; and what types of innovation might be possible but are currently missed by "top-down" approaches to consultation. Hertel's talk features analysis of quantitative data from over 7,000 companies worldwide; she finds extractive companies across all regions tend to consult more heavily than light manufacturing companies, and corporations determine the mode, scope and content of the practice regardless of sector or region.
The talk also features original interview data from paired case studies in two manufacturing towns in the Dominican Republic where collegiate apparel is produced. Hertel reveals local peoples' insight on the limits of existing approaches to stakeholder dialogue along with their ideas for how better to diagnose problems, predict future challenges, and forge solutions to ongoing violations of economic rights.
Shareen Hertel is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Connecticut, jointly appointed with the university's Human Rights Institute.
Tuesday, March 3
Do you have questions about completing your e-portfolio for your UCIS certificate? Advisors and students will be available to introduce you to the template, help you brainstorm what to say, and answer any tech questions you may have.
The Center for Sustainable Business and the Global Studies Center invite you to join us for an interactive panel discussion about the role of business in driving social change in line with the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framework. The panel will be moderated by Dr. Michael Goodhart, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Global Studies Center.
Panel includes...
-Shareen Hertel, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Connecticut
-Grant Ervin, Chief Resilience Officer, Sustainability Manager at the City of Pittsburgh
-Aurora Sharrard, Director of Sustainability, Office of Sustainability at the University of Pittsburgh
-CB Bhattacharya, H.J. Zoffer Chair of Sustainability & Ethics at the Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh
Please note this language table has been canceled. Please contact upittgerman@gmail.com with any questions.
Join the Pitt German Club for an hour of German conversation practice and cultural activities.
The Center for Latin American Studies (CLAS) is pleased to present the Spring 2020 Latin American Film Series. This series was curated by Luciana Lemos, a Brazilian GSPIA student with experience organizing independent film festivals. The topics vary from gender issues, water rights, and ethnicity in Latin America and the Caribbean to Latinx identity and a reflection on the tensions between parental roles and public duty.
The films will be screened approximately twice per month, though the end of the spring semester. Doors open and pizza is served at 6 p.m., and screenings will start at 6:30. Stick around after the screening to participate in a discussion with actors, producers, directors, and faculty. Films will be screened at either 4130 Wesley W. Posvar Hall or the Frick Fine Arts Auditorium.
For more information on upcoming films, email us at clas@pitt.edu
This special event is a screening of the 2006 digitally restored print of a A Throw of Dice (director Franz Osten), a 1929 silent Indian film based on a story from the Mahabharata. The film follows two kings as they vie for the love of a hermit's daughter, the beautiful Sunita. This unique historical gem will be accompanied live by a musical score created for the film by New York jazz artist Rez Abbasi and his quartet. He composed the score on behalf of the New York Guitar Society in 2019 and subsequently released it as an album from Whirlwind Records.
A reception will take place at 5:30 pm in the Frick Fine Arts Cloisters before the film screening.
Tickets are free, but limited. To reserve a spot, please email asia@pitt.edu.
Please note this event has been canceled. Contact Shayan Jalali (shj55@pitt.edu) with any questions.
Practice your Persian language skills at our bi-weekly language table!
Wednesday, March 4
Designed for juniors, seniors, and graduate students to establish a career direction
and formulate a strategy for securing a full-time position in today's competitive
international and global workplace. Students focus on developing specific
competencies that include career selection, jobsearch activities, resume and
cover letter development, professionalnetworking techniques, behavioral
interviewing skills, and workplace ethicsin preparation for government, business,
and nonprofit sector careers. ALL ARE WELCOME TO ATTEND WORKSHOPS.
Learning Goals
This initiative emphasizes developing readiness to transition to the
workplace. The focus is on the development of self-awareness, interviewing
skills, the acquisition of job-hunting knowledge as well as the formulation
of an action plan to achieve the student's job and career goals.
Learning Outcomes
1. To clarify personal interests, values, skills
and career options.
2. To research/explore various fields for
international and global careers.
3. To create a career search strategy that
can/will be used upon course completion.
4. To present self effectively in an interview or
conversation with potential employers.
Featuring Anne Prescott on the new koto generously donated to Pitt by Dr. Linda Ehrlich, Professor Emerita, Case Western Reserve University. Yuko Eguchi Wright and Devon Tipp will also be performing.
Contact Jennifer Wallace (jlw200@pitt.edu) or Bei Cheng (beicheng@pitt.edu) for specific questions.
In honor of International Women's Day (March 8th), the Hub will be hosting a series of panel conversations focused on intersectional feminism. Undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, staff, and community members are all welcome to join the conversation. Refreshments will be served!
Our first session will feature panelists Kaniqua Robinson, Assistant Professor in the Department of Africana Studies and Edoukou Aka-Ezoua, MSW, Project Support Coordinator in the School of Social Work. The conversation will be facilitated by Alannah Caisey, PhD student in the Department of Sociology.
Thursday, March 5
Pitt in Florence info session is an opportunity for students interested in semester programs in Florence to learn from a fellow student who went on the program in spring 2019.
The presentation will be led by GBI/Pitt in Florence peer adviser Anthony Podrasky, and will focus on academic, internship and cultural experiences on the program
Shortages, bottlenecks, and over-centralization in the Soviet economy made the distribution of goods uneven, limited, and, to some extent, non-existent. But it would be a mistake to see the Soviet economy as only a planned, top-down system. Interwoven within it were shadow economies with illegal schemes that the innovative and corrupt exploited. What do these shadow economies say about Soviet everyday life, informal networks, and corruption, and how did their proliferation reflect and shape the realities of Soviet socialism? This live interview with James Heinzen will explore these questions and more through the culture, practices and morays of underground entrepreneurs in the Soviet Union from the 1960s to the 1980s.
This event is part of the Socialism: Past, Present and Future Pop-Up Course.
Do you have questions about completing your e-portfolio for your UCIS certificate? Advisors and students will be available to introduce you to the template, help you brainstorm what to say, and answer any tech questions you may have.
Please note this language table is now meeting via Zoom. Contact Julia O'Hare (jho3@pitt.edu) for more information.
Portuguese Language Table
Please note this event is now meeting online. Join via Zoom: https://pitt.zoom.us/j/466509031
Contact Benjamin Brand (bmb145@pitt.edu) with any questions.
Join professors and students from the Department of German and practice your language skills!
Dr. Victoria Reyes is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Riverside. She received her PhD from Princeton’s Department of Sociology in January 2015, and was a 2016-2017 Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Center for Institutional Diversity at the University of Michigan. She previously taught in Bryn Mawr College’s Growth and Structure of Cities Department. Her research focuses on boundaries; how they are created and remade as well as how they shape inequality in global settings, and she has examined these processes as they relate to leisure migration, cultural politics, sovereignty, and legally plural, foreign-controlled places she calls “global borderlands.”
Please note this event has been canceled. Contact Emily Fogel (ehf11@pitt.edu) with any questions.
Practice your Hebrew at our weekly language table!
Practice your Turkish language skills - all levels welcome!
Please note this meeting has been canceled. Please contact Ceara McAtee at ckm30@pitt.edu with any questions.
Irish language and culture club
Friday, March 6
Dr. Victoria Reyes is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Riverside. She received her PhD from Princeton’s Department of Sociology in January 2015, and was a 2016-2017 Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Center for Institutional Diversity at the University of Michigan. She previously taught in Bryn Mawr College’s Growth and Structure of Cities Department. Her research focuses on boundaries; how they are created and remade as well as how they shape inequality in global settings, and she has examined these processes as they relate to leisure migration, cultural politics, sovereignty, and legally plural, foreign-controlled places she calls “global borderlands.”
This language table has moved online. Contact Dijana Mujkanovic (dim31@pitt.edu) for more information.
Practice your Bosnian, Serbian, or Croatian language skills at our weekly language table.
Do you have questions about completing your e-portfolio for your UCIS certificate? Advisors and students will be available to introduce you to the template, help you brainstorm what to say, and answer any tech questions you may have.
Please note this meeting is postponed until further notice. Contact Areti Papanastasiou (areti.papanastasiou@pitt.edu) with any questions.
Practice your Modern Greek language skills - all levels welcome!
Please note this meeting is now happening online. Contact Luana Reis (lreis@pitt.edu) for more information.
One of the challenges that language professionals face in our increasingly diverse communities is establishing a balance between diversity and language standards. While Standard Japanese can be considered a common language to interact with the majority of Japanese speakers who may not be accustomed to nonnative speech (ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines, 2012), the strict requirement to follow the monolingual standard may disregard the legitimacy of multilingual speakers, including nonstandard dialect speakers. The presenter will discuss pros and cons of setting standards in language programs and relevant findings concerning the native speaker fallacy (Tsuchiya, 2019). Then the presenter will share his shifting perspectives on errors, interlanguage, dialectal differences, and certain “nonstandard” practices (e.g. translanguaging) in his experience of training, hiring, and supervising teaching assistants at Brigham Young University.
APAICS (with an S), the Asian Pacific American Institute for Congressional Studies does a series of 501c3 API candidate trainings every year around the country, and the Governor's Commission on Asian Pacific American Affairs would like to bring them to Pittsburgh next year to train up any community members who want to run. This event would be the reception for one night of this training. Contact Kim Dinh at kimmytdinh@pitt.edu or Mohan Seshadri at mseshadri@pa.gov for any questions.