Global conflicts, climate change, and unequal development challenge both societal and personal resilience by causing displacement, restricting resources, and counteracting efforts for a renewable world. Whether in urban or rural areas, people across the world grapple with creating sustainable livelihoods, ecosystems, social infrastructures, and economies. If resilience can be defined as the competence to reduce precarity during a crisis and build a more thriving society after, how can we best encourage students to learn about and become agents for global resilience?
The 2024 Summer Institute offers a free, week-long professional development opportunity for K-12 educators, combining joint sessions with self-selected tracks that balance interactive activities with time for individual research while prioritizing support for the design of high-quality curricular materials. All sessions will be held virtually. Educators from Title I and Title III schools are particularly encouraged to apply.
Week of March 3, 2024 in UCIS
Sunday, March 3
Monday, March 4
Come meet international students, make friends, practice conversational English, and have fun together, during these weekly discussion groups coordinated by the English Language Institute. Feel free to bring your lunch :)
Tuesday, March 5
Integrating languages and cultures across the curriculum is an innovative approach that fosters a holistic educational experience. By intertwining diverse linguistic and cultural elements into various subjects, students gain a deeper understanding of cultural competence and global perspectives relevant to their disciplines. This method not only enhances language proficiency but also promotes empathy, cross-cultural communication, and a nuanced appreciation for the rich tapestry of human expression. Ultimately, it prepares students to navigate an interconnected world with cultural sensitivity and linguistic versatility. The talk aims to explore models of curriculum development and assessment to build and sustain CLAC programming in higher education. The speaker also presents current practices in the Language Engagement Project at Rutgers University.
Speaker:
Doaa Rashed, Ph.D.
Associate Teaching Professor, Department of English
Director, Language Engagement Project
Co-Director, Language and Social Justice Initiative
Rutgers, the State University of NJ
Are you an undergraduate Pitt student planning to embark on a summer global experience? Join the Spring 2024 3-part UCIS Digital Narrative Workshop Series and create a short video to document your experience, which will be displayed on the big screen in the Global Hub!
3-part Workshop Series:
Workshop #1: Monday, February 26 | 5-8 pm | Posvar 4217
Workshop #2: Tuesday, March 5 | 5-8 pm | Posvar 4217
Workshop #3: Tuesday, March 19 | 5-7 pm | Global Hub (1st floor, Posvar Hall)
Note: Students should attend all 3 workshops. If you have class or other pressing conflicts, special exceptions might be made, although you are strongly encouraged to join as much as you can to get the most out of the experience!
Registration deadline: February 23
Join German Club at Pitt’s weekly meetings, on Tuesdays at 6-7 pm during Spring 2024, to converse in German and learn German culture!
Wednesday, March 6
This lecture will discuss the phenomenon of Metaverse and AI fever in China. Whereas Metaverse attempts to create a virtual and mixed reality that expands our external environment, AI tries to create artificial intelligence that extends our internal consciousness. Both are about creating a world that will fundamentally change the way we engage with people and the world, prompting us to question who we are and what we will become. Built on a discussion of paradoxes and challenges intrinsic in the development of AI and metaverse, this paper will primarily focus on the discourses of AI and Metaverse in China. I suggest that the debate about metaverse (Yuan yuzhou元宇宙) continues the May Fourth debate of Science and Metaphysics, establishing and doubting the power of science in contemporary context. Meanwhile, the discussion of AI also hinges upon its uncertainty and inevitability that will fundamentally change the course of humanity. Through an analysis of two films, Ne Zha (2019) and Goddamned Asura (2021, Taiwan), I will show some philosophical and religious solutions as suggested in these cinematic works in the Chinese studies Context.
Come practice your conversational Hungarian with students of all levels!
Join weekly Bate-Papo Portuguese conversation practice for all levels,
from brand-new beginners to advanced or heritage speakers!
Thursday, March 7
8.30-9.00 am: Registration & Breakfast
9.00-9.30 am: Opening Remarks
Dean Elizabeth MZ Farmer, Ph.D.
Christina Babusci, LSW
School of Social Work, University of Pittsburgh
9.30-10.30 am: Keynote #1
Raciolized Trauma in AAPI Communities
Jessica Kim, LCSW
School of Social Policy & Practice
University of Pennsylvania
10.30- 11.00 am: Brief Session
On Suicide and Care:
Insights from South Korean Young Women
Jung Eun Kwon, MA
Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh
11.00-12.00 pm: Documentary Discussion
Being Asian in America
Moderator: Daniel Lee, Ph.D.
School of Social Work, University of Pittsburgh
12.00-1.00 pm: Lunch
1.00-2.00 pm: Keynote #2
Local Advocacy and Resources
Marian Lien, Asian Pacific American
Advocates-Pittsburgh
2.00- 2.30 pm: Pitt Resources
API organizations, support, & advocacy
2:30-4.00 pm: DEi Leadership Panel
Moderator: Deborah Moon, Ph.D.
School of Social Work, University of Pittsburgh
4 .00-4.10 pm: Closing Remarks
Kyaien 0. Conner, Ph.D.
Center for Race and Social Problem
University of Pittsburgh
4 :20-5:30 pm: Performance
Mai Khoi, Singer/ Artist/ Activist
University of Pittsburgh faculty and graduate students are invited to join the ValEUs network for the 2nd Provocation in our series. As geopolitical actor Europe aspires to empire/has fallen into insignificance. What are the enduring legacies of European empires in formulating EU foreign policy? To what extent are current EU values perceived as rooted in imperial and colonial histories? Europe as such has no military thus the European response to the war in Ukraine takes place primarily through NATO; does that diminish the EU's geo-political significance? A great deal of the power of the EU is soft power; is soft power a good venue to convey values, or is soft power its own vale? How do world crises reveal the significance or insignificance of EU values?
Mangia con noi! Bring your lunch and chat with us! Pitt students only,
all levels welcome!
Hrishabh Sandaliya, Co-Director of European Programme for Integration and Migration (EPIM)
In this session he will speak candidly, offering insight from his "lived experience as a migrant,
student, entrepreneur and civil society activist on the seeming impossibility of Europe today, and the hope -the relational and imagination infrastructures we need to ensure its continuity." Specifically, he hopes to relate "my time in and from Europe's different nooks and corners - borders (Cyprus and Armenia), Scandinavia, MittelEuropa and its capital, to the numerous challenges we face, and posit that perhaps we need a different way to make sense of our world and address these issues -beyond the binaries of black and white and left and right." Seats are limited to allow for good conversation.
About the Speaker:
Hrishabh Sandilya is Co-Director of EPIM, the European Programme for Integration and Migration and Co-lead at ReImagined Futures, a collective systems change consultancy. Sandilya works on narratives, systems, and imagination and relational infrastructures as Co-Director of EPIM, the European Programme for Integration and Migration and at ReImagined Futures, a collective systems change consultancy he co-leads. Between 2018 and 2022, Hrishabh setup and led Project Phoenix in Cyprus working on refugee inclusion and entrepreneurship, building on a decade-long body of work in the non-profit, academic, and entrepreneurial worlds across Czechia, Armenia, India, and Sweden. Hrishabh occasionally opines and comments and his work has been featured on Czech Television and in Project Syndicate and the Indian Express (amongst others). Hrishabh was raised in Bombay and then spent 12 years in Prague, building a parallel life within the city’s engrossing cultural scene - as a restaurateur, curating a gallery and a regular DJ gig at one of the city’s favorite clubs. After naturalizing as a Czech citizen, the rest of Europe beckoned, resulting in a meandering trail through Berlin, Yerevan, Sweden’s idyllic south coast, Nicosia and eventually Brussels, during which he complimented professional pursuits with time spent sailing and filmmaking, and back at university. Hrishabh was a 2023 Marshall Memorial Fellow.
Facilitated by Randall Halle, Director: European Studies Center, University of Pittsburgh
Join the French Club for conversation hours, on Mondays & Thursday at 5-6 pm during Spring 2024, for French speaking individuals of varying levels to practice the French language.
Join the Persian Language Table every other Thursday during Spring 2024 to practice language, celebrate culture, and meet new people!
Friday, March 8
*For University of Pittsburgh Affiliates (Students, Staff, Faculty) Only*
The second meeting of the reading group that will be discussing "Daughter of The Dragon", by Yunte Huang.
Join Addverse Poesia, an international and multilingual poetry group
that discusses, reads and translates poems in at least 4 languages, for
their weekly meetings!