Alumni Newsletter - Fall 2019
Edition no. 23
|
Table of Contents |
Do you have any updates or information you would like to share in the next alumni newsletter? Contact alumni@iau.edu or call 1.800.221.2051 to share your story. We'd love to hear from you! |
On-Campus at IAU |
IAU Secures New Academic Facility in Barcelona, Spain | ||
IAU's Barcelona program continues to grow and we are excited to announce that we have secured a new site in the center of the city, where we will begin operations on January 1, 2020, just in time to receive our January term students. The new center is located in the Dreta de l’Eixample district near Plaça de Catalunya. This quiet, tree-lined neighborhood provides an optimal academic environment for both students and faculty. The center includes several classrooms, faculty offices, a reception hall, conference space, study lounge, and a large kitchen for Catalán cooking classes and demonstrations. In addition, the new center has a large terrace which will enable students and faculty to take full advantage of Barcelona’s year-round temperate climate. The center will be especially valuable as IAU expects to host its largest cohorts yet in Barcelona in 2020, including over 100 students there in the spring semester. |
||
The School of Art Travels to Giverny |
||
|
||
|
||
Fall 2019 Lecture Series |
||
Photo by Kelly Killoran |
IAU hosts lecture series, symposiums, and conferences each term with speakers from the IAU Faculty, Resident Fellows, Visiting Scholars, local community leaders, as well as experts in fields relevant to the current events of the region. IAU strives to remain active and engaged with the academic and cultural community of the region, and one way to achieve this is by maintaining an open and up-to-date dialogue for the student body. View the Fall 2019 Lecture Series Schedule here. |
|
IAU Professor Creates New Prize for European Studies |
||
An IAU/ACM professor (who wishes to remain anonymous) recently endowed a new prize that will honor a student who has made an outstanding contribution to courses dealing with more than one European country, and who has shown a special interest in, and enthusiasm for, European integration. This prize will be named the "Simone Veil prize for European Studies," after the renowned French champion of European integration. This prize will be given to the selected student(s) at the closing ceremony of each semester when IAU's other academic awards are given. We are extremely grateful for the generosity shown by our professor. | ||
Beginning French Students Visit Local Aix Boulangerie |
||
Experiential learning is central to IAU's mission and philosophy. Every IAU course integrates experiential, high-impact, outside-the-classroom components where students can learn about the culture of their place of study. This semester, beginning French students visited a nearby boulangerie to learn about one of France's most prominent symbols - the baguette! |
||
Faculty Retirements and Departures Dr. Charles Potter, Professor Philip Lorrain, and Professor Amy Mumma |
||
Sadly, IAU learned this fall that Dr. Charles Potter intends to retire from teaching. After many years teaching media studies and communications at New York University, Professor Potter began teaching at IAU in 2007, impressing many students with his course on Provençal culture in literature and the media as well as his course on France under the occupation, in which he regularly invited former members of the French resistance to speak to students. IAU students were incredibly fortunate to benefit from Professor Potter’s encyclopedic knowledge of the region and of France as a whole. We are grateful that Professor Potter will continue to have a role within the IAU family as an advisor and guide. After many years of guiding IAU students through the French language, we celebrate the retirement of Professor Philippe Lorrain, who began teaching the theory and practice of phonetics at IAU in 1996 and was key in maintaining IAU’s partnership with the Aix-Marseille University. Professor Lorrain also taught advanced French language classes during the summer term. He has long been a presence in Aix, having received his degree in socio-linguistics from Aix-Marseille University where he remained as a professor for the Service Commun d’Enseignement du Français aux Étudiants Étrangers, as well as teaching international students in many programs throughout Aix. We will greatly miss Professor Lorrain at IAU, but hope to see him in the streets of Aix enjoying a well-deserved retirement. Finally, IAU recently announced with sadness Professor Amy Mumma’s decision to step down from her position as Professor and Coordinator of Global Wine Studies at IAU/ACM. We are grateful to Professor Mumma for devoting her considerable creative energy and academic experience to building a vibrant IAU Global Wine Studies program that continues to flourish. We will miss her focus on creating a rich learning experience for all her students, many of whom she continued to advise as they pursued careers in the wine industry. As she is fond of saying, jamais en vain, toujours en vin! In announcing her decision, Professor Mumma said that it had been a great pleasure and privilege to work with her IAU colleagues and students. IAU/ACM wishes Professor Mumma the best of success in her future endeavors. |
||
IAU Welcomes New Board Members Barbara Kafka and Peter Dorman |
||
IAU is honored to report that at the October IAU Board Meeting, two new board members accepted an invitation to become trustees. Dr. Peter Fitzgerald Dorman served as the President of the American University in Beirut, Lebanon (AUB) from 2008 to 2015. He is a Mediterranean specialist and scholar of Mid-East Studies. As an epigrapher, philologist, and Egyptologist he spent most of his career as a professor and chair in the department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations (NELC) of the University of Chicago, and was director of Chicago House in Luxor, the Epigraphic Survey field project of the Oriental Institute. He is presently a professor emeritus of the University of Chicago. Dorman is a leader in the study of the ancient Near East and is the author and editor of several major books and many articles on the study of ancient Egypt, including: Faces in Clay: Technique, Imagery, and Allusion in a Corpus of Ceramic Sculpture from Ancient Egypt (2002), Sacred Space and Sacred Function in Ancient Thebes (2007), Perspectives on Ptolemaic Thebes (2013), and Creativity and Innovation in the Reign of Hatshepsut (2014). Ms. Barbara Kafka is a retired World Bank senior executive who served in a range of positions which involved her in the economic and social development of countries across Africa, the Middle East and Asia. She currently chairs New Futures, a Washington DC-based scholarship organization serving low-income youth in the region and is a member of the management committee and project adviser at the Partnership for Transparency Fund, a nonprofit organization supporting civil society approaches to enhance transparency and the rule of law in developing and emerging countries. The accomplishments of Dr. Dorman and Ms. Kafka hold them in good stead to serve on the IAU/ACM Board and help lead our institution into the next phase of development and academic excellence. Welcome Dr. Dorman and Ms. Kafka! |
||
Council of Academic Advisors Holds Annual Meeting in Aix-en-Provence |
||
IAU hosted a lively and productive meeting of the Council of Academic Advisors (CAA) on October 17-19 in Aix-en-Provence. The CAA is an advisory council composed of professors and administrators from the field of international education at universities across the United States who are tasked with advising IAU on academic, programmatic, and procedural aspects of its operations. The theme of this year's meeting was "Diversity and Student Well-Being Abroad." IAU’s Council of Academic Advisors (CAA) was created to ensure that its academic directors and professors are kept up to date on international education trends and to provide feedback on and act as a sounding board for ideas for curricular and pedagogical innovations. The CAA membership is drawn from national leaders in international education, a variety of campuses that send students abroad, and individuals in professorial and administrative ranks at universities across the US. IAU has made significant policy decisions based on some of the feedback it has received from the CAA. For a full list of CAA members, please click here. |
Alumni Events |
Get Involved |
ACM Degree Program Applications Open for the 2020-2021 Academic Year |
If you are like many other IAU alumni looking for reasons to return to IAU and Aix-en-Provence, consider the Master’s degrees offered through IAU’s degree-granting entity, The American College of the Mediterranean (ACM). ACM offers a 2-year MFA degree in Painting and 1-year master's degrees in Art History, French Studies, International Relations, and Business Administration. ACM also offers a Bachelor's degree with over 15 majors and minors from which to choose, so feel free to share this information with any high school or community college students you may know. Click below to learn more or begin an application. |
Learn More |
Does your place of work offer internships to students? IAU and ACM are interested in creating an alumni internship network, where IAU alumni could connect with IAU and ACM students to encourage internships in diverse fields around the world. Interested in learning more or discussing collaboration possibilities? Please contact Philip Breeden. |
Are you interested in returning to IAU to share what you know about student life in Aix? As a student at IAU, surely you remember how much a mentor on-site (and your age!) was a welcomed contact. Students often arrive in Aix not knowing exactly what to expect of the city, school or culture. As a means for recent graduates to gain teaching and international education experience, IAU offers the Alumni Fellows Program to those IAU alumni from the last three years willing to offer mentorship to the body of students in Aix for a semester or academic year. |
IAU hosts alumni receptions each year in various cities around the U.S. These events rely on the generosity of our alumni and partners, and the city where these events are held usually depends on where we have someone willing to donate their time, energy, and space. |
Giving Back to IAU |
There are many ways to donate to IAU. Regardless of the amount or the form that a donation may take, IAU is deeply humbled by the action itself. Whether donors wish to honor or commemorate an individual, or contribute to buildings and classrooms through IAU's Naming and Legacy Opportunities, or help ensure the excellence of IAU programs for future generations of students, we invite potential donors to consider and select one or more of the donation opportunities listed below and on the IAU website. We sincerely thank you for your support. |
Donate Now
|
This December 3rd, join IAU in participating in the global #GivingTuesday movement. |
What is Giving Tuesday? Celebrated on the Tuesday following Thanksgiving (in the U.S.) and after the widely recognized shopping events Black Friday and Cyber Monday, #GivingTuesday kicks off the charitable season, when many focus on their holiday and end-of-year giving. Since its inaugural year in 2012, #GivingTuesday has become a movement that celebrates and supports giving and philanthropy. |
Support IAU on Amazon Smile |
Consider supporting IAU on Amazon Smile. You shop how you normally would on Amazon.com, and a percentage of the proceeds goes directly to IAU. |
Support IAU on Amazon Smile |
The Yamina Boudellal Diversity Scholarship |
|
In honor of Yamina Boudellal, for her forty-six years of untiring and devoted service to the students of the Institute for American Universities, a scholarship fund has been opened to assist students in studying abroad with IAU. Yamina's love of IAU will always inspire us! Funds from this scholarship will be used to attract outstanding students from diverse backgrounds who are traditionally underrepresented in international education. Since the scholarship fund was created in May 2017, we have raised over $15,000 to help send underrepresented students abroad! Contribute now to support this effort. |
|
Donate to the Yamina Boudellal Diversity Scholarship |
IAU Legacy Giving: The Mont Sainte-Victoire Society |
|
IAU is extremely grateful to our alumni and other supporters who have remembered IAU in their estate planning. The Mont Saint-Victoire Legacy Society is an association for donors who have included IAU in their estate plans through a planned gift or other charitable donation. For more information about remembering IAU in your estate plans, please contact Kurt Schick, Vice President of U.S. Operations. |
|
News from Our Alumni |
Jan Brogan, IAU alumna from 1978, and IAU Resident Fellow in Spring 2018, has sold the rights to her mystery novel, A Confidential Source, to Transactional Pictures (Steven Soderbergh and Philip Fleishman, Executive Producers). Creator Michael Corrente wrote the pilot and the television series is currently under development. Congratulations on this exciting news, Jan! |
|
"Then and Now" For our "Then and Now" features, we ask two open-ended questions of our alumni: 1. Would you mind telling us a little bit about yourself; 2. How did your time abroad with IAU influence/inspire/change/or otherwise affect your life afterward? Here, Louise Nessralla ('18), Barry Sussman ('59-'60), Dean Parisi ('89), and Casey Maginier O'Hara ('05) tell us about how IAU influenced their lives after their time abroad. |
|
Louise Nessralla ('18): "Then and Now" |
|
How did your time abroad with IAU influence/inspire/change/or otherwise affect your life afterward? Thanks for sharing your story, Louise! |
|
Barry Sussman ('59-'60): "Then and Now" |
|
Photos: (left) Barry with his wife Sue and the artist Felix Aublet; (right) Barry in fall 2019. |
|
Thanks for sharing your story, Barry! |
|
Berardino Parisi ('89, Toulon): "Then and Now" |
|
Thanks for sharing your story, Berardino! |
|
|
|
Casey Maginier O'Hara ('05) shares below how her time abroad with IAU and a chance encounter later on with IAU in Aix influenced her life path: Thanks for sharing your story, Casey! |
|
Alumni Return to Aix! |
|
Sara Kovacs ('06) pictured here with IAU Professor and Director of Student Life, Margaux Hofstedt, who Sara said was instrumental in making study abroad a possibility for her. Sara stopped by IAU in mid-October. | |
Katie Fleet ('80), pictured here with Vice President of Administration, Philip Breeden, visited IAU in mid-October. She had not been back since her time abroad in 1980. She had a host family in Puyricard, and one of her principal memories is of the walk to and from town. This experience of the countryside, she said, influenced her choice of a career in flower farming back in the U.S. | |
Barry Sussman ('59-'60) and his wife Susan were happy to be back in Aix. Read more about Barry above in his "Then and Now" feature. | |
Cindy Mathieson ('72), pictured here with her husband, Rand, visited IAU in early October. She has kept up with her French all these years through kids, a second BA, a career in musical theatre, and numerous moves around the US. She is so committed to the French she learned as “a lost little girl” in 1972, she plans to come back to IAU for her Masters in French. A bientôt, Cindy! | |
Jim Shrier ('75), pictured here with his wife Christine, visited IAU in early October. Based in Charbroix, MI, Jim fondly remembers his time in Aix, especially when the whole class was invited for teatime at the residence of Herbert Maza. He was very happy to visit the library at 2bis rue du Bon Pasteur, which remains largely unchanged. | |
Pam Pearlman ('72), pictured here with her husband Jim, visited IAU in early October from Schenectady, NY. She is interested in reconnecting with people from her class, and wanted to track down her old host family while in Aix with a tour group. | |
Kelly Stonebock Luttinen ('07), pictured here with husband Paul and IAU Dean Leigh Smith, visited Aix in mid-September. Kelly now works in advertising in Peoria, IL. She recalled her fond memories of CEF library and archaeology class with Professor Guillaume Durand, especially his sense of humor. Once when he couldn’t think of what the word for cannibal was he asked them, “What is the word for when you don’t eat animals but you might eat your grandmother.” :) | |
Other alumni visits this fall include: Sheila Bergmann (Finkelstein) ('63-'64) Judith Swink ('63-'64) Suzanne Swanson Montgomery ('69-'70) Debbie Fuller Shwab ('69-'70) Dorrie Brennick ('12) Jan Buchla Bigalke ('69) Loren Sampson ('87) |
|
Are you planning a visit to Aix? We would love to meet you and show you around the IAU buildings! Get in touch by emailing Rose Guth. |
Do you have any updates or information you would like to share in the next alumni newsletter? Contact alumni@iau.edu or call 1.800.221.2051 to share your story. We'd love to hear from you! |