Alumni Newsletter - Summer 2019

Edition no. 22 
Summer 2019

Table of Contents

• 2019 ACM Graduation & IAU Spring Closing Ceremony
• Summer 2019 Lecture Series
• Summer Enrollments & Faculty-Led Programs in Aix, Barcelona, and throughout Morocco 
• School of Art Summer Group
• French Honors Program

• Recap: Class Reunion in Florida: Class of 1967-1968
• Friends from IAU 1966-1967 Reunite

• Return to IAU for a J-Term Program
• Master's Programs with ACM
• IAU/ACM Internship Referral Program
• Alumni Ambassador Program
• Host a Reception

• Amazon Smile
• The Yamina Boudellal Diversity Scholarship
• Legacy Gifts
• Giving Tuesday

• IAU Alumni Secure Post-Grad Opportunities in French and Beyond
• Drew Lewis ('17) Conducts Research About Students of Color in Homestays Abroad
• Regiane Ocampo ('18) Finds Inspiration with IAU in Barcelona
• Kathy Brodsky ('65-'66) Shares Newspaper Clipping of Classmate's New York Times Article About Aix
• Sophie Leininger ('06) Visits Aix
• Gail Starr ('69) Recounts Impactful Visit Back to Aix
• Alumna Margaux Moze ('18) Presents Research at AAWE Conference in Vienna
• Then & Now
  • Brent Beery ('96)
  • Joanne Kauffman ('64)
  • Grace Escamilla ('08)

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 store. We'd love to hear from you! 

On-Campus at IAU

IAU alumna and former Ambassador Frances D. Cook spoke at the May 10, 2019 commencement ceremony of the American College of the Mediterranean and the Institute of American Universities in Aix-en-Provence. Fourteen ACM graduates from Masters Programs in Fine Arts, International Relations, and Art History (names below), and almost 200 IAU study abroad students heard Ambassador Cook’s call for political, artistic, and social engagement in the world, illustrated with vignettes from her inspiring career as a diplomat and foreign policy advisor. Her first big break, she said, came due to the French-language skills and self-confidence she learned from studying abroad. Arriving as a young officer at the U.S. Embassy, Paris in May 1968, Ambassador Cook noted, “I arrived at the huge U.S. Embassy in Paris, fluent, and very comfortable working in the unique work environment of France, thanks to the French I learned here.” Her ability to play a role at the center of the seminal events of 1968 – monitoring the student riots, working on the U.S.-Vietnam peace talks, witnessing the rocky Franco-American relations of that period – launched her on a diplomatic career that led to several Ambassadorships. This included being the youngest career diplomat to be named Ambassador, and later on the first woman from any country to serve as Ambassador in the Arab Gulf, in the Sultanate of Oman. She said it was now the graduates' turn to join her in “working for change,” telling them, “The wonderful nation of France is now a part of you, and you’ll draw on its richness and depth, its challenges and its lessons, for the rest of your lives.” 

Thank you, Ambassador Cook, and congratulations to the graduates! 

2019 ACM Graduates: 

• Tryphena Asamoah, Master of Arts in International Relations (MAIR)
• Larkin Brown, Master of Arts in International Relations (MAIR)
• Chloe Cummings, Master of Arts in International Relations (MAIR)
• Nika Lomidze, Master of Arts in International Relations (MAIR)
• Lisa Mandel, Master of Arts in International Relations (MAIR)
• Kirsti Stangeland, Master of Arts in International Relations (MAIR)
• Isabel Burnette, Master of Arts in Art History (MAAH)
• Jenny Cawood, Master of Arts in Art History (MAAH)
• Benjamin Garza, Master of Arts in Art History (MAAH)
• Patrick Beeby, Master of Fine Arts in Painting (MFA)
• Sophie Browning, Master of Fine Arts in Painting (MFA)
• Bill Hindle, Master of Fine Arts in Painting (MFA)
• Mary Leone, Master of Fine Arts in Painting (MFA)
• Hilary Stein, Master of Fine Arts in Painting (MFA)

To read the full text of Ambassador Cook's commencement address, please follow this link.  Master's graduates Hilary Stein (MFA), Lisa Mandel (MAIR), and Jenny Cawood (MAAH) each gave speeches to conclude the ceremony. See the full text of their speeches below: 

• Hilary Stein, Master of Fine Arts
• Lisa Mandel, Master of Arts in International Relations
• Jenny Cawood, Master of Arts in Art History

• Agnes Scott College
• Austin Peay State University
• Belmont University
• California State University - Fullerton
• Duke University
• George Washington University
• Northern Arizona University
• Northern Illinois University
• Ohio State University
• Pennsylvania State University
• Princeton University
• St. John's College
• Susquehanna University
• University of Colorado - Denver
• University of Mary Washington
• University of Nebraska - Lincoln
• University of North Texas
• University of Oregon
• Washington State University

Alumni Events

 

This past May, classmates from the IAU class of 1967-1968 reunited in Florida to reconnect and reminisce on their time together in Aix-en-Provence. One 1967-1968 alumna, Helen Ann (Davis) Spence, wrote a lovely summary of their reunion: 

"Before leaving Aix 51 years ago, the president of our class distributed a proclamation to each of us stating that we had participated in the “French Revolution” (known as la grève) in May of 1968 (see below for a copy of this proclamation). It was a volatile period of civil unrest throughout France. There were demonstrations, riots, major strikes and the occupation of universities and factories.

"One of the repercussions for us was our inability to receive money from home as the banks were closed. As many of us were not living with French families, this brought us all closer together sharing our centimes for food and 'beverage.'

"To this day, the bond between us continues. Nina Pinches Berkheiser and Gerald York planned this recent reunion and did a fantastic job organizing all of the festivities. The reunion took place at the Dolphin Beach Resort in St. Petersburg, Florida. The attendees were Nancy Arnold, Gail Burke, Janice Ciampa Bauer, Judy Bugay Hallgren, Georgia Clark Savinar, Helen Davis Spence, Donna Gano Minard, Nina Pinches Berkheiser, Judith Rice and Gerald York.

"We arrived Thursday, May 16th, and on our first evening, we had a group dinner at the resort. The next day we were free during the day to sightsee and that afternoon, Nina hosted a pool party at her house. Gerald brought out his guitar and played during the evening as we reminisced about Aix. On the final day, we enjoyed a dinner at a French restaurant in downtown St. Petersburg. Back at the resort, there was further musical entertainment as we made fools of ourselves at the karaoke bar.

"It’s wonderful to still have friendships that were created more than 50 years ago in Aix at the IAU."

Thank you, Helen Ann! Are you interested in gathering your IAU class for a reunion? The IAU Office of Alumni Affairs would be happy to support your efforts. Please reach out to alumni@iau.edu or 800-221-2051 for more information.

  

News from Our Alumni

Our incredible recent alumni have had success in their endeavors as they move on from IAU and their undergraduate careers. Here are just a few examples of what our alumni have been up to: 

• Martha "Lizzie" McIntosh (Summer '17) published an article in The Bitter Southerner about a sculptor in her region of the United States South. Read the full article here.
• Julia McDaniel, who won the Spring 2015 IAU Atelier d’Ecriture Prize for her creative nonfiction essay “Getting It Right,” will be on full scholarship at the Helen Zell Creative Writing MFA Program at the University of Michigan this Fall 2019.
• Nyssa Muheim (Spring '13) has secured a job as a French teacher at a secondary school in London.
• Dylan Ashton (Fall '16) will be headed back to France on a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant grant and will be teaching at Lycée Jacques BREL in La Courneuve, France.
• Morgan Gallagher (Spring '18) was selected on a Fulbright Advanced Student grant to research environmental studies at IRSTEA in Lyon. Her research topic will center around “Consequences of River Intermittency for Microbial Greenhouse Gas Production."
• Jayme Rhoads (Spring '16) has been awarded a Fulbright grant.
• Emily Wieder (Fall '17) will continue her studies at the doctorate level at the University of Iowa, where she will work toward her doctorate in French/francophone studies. 

IAU alumna Drew Lewis' time in Aix-en-Provence influenced her senior sociology research paper. She explains more below:

"I studied with IAU in Aix-en-Provence in the Fall of 2017. It was by far the most memorable semester of my college career. I was thrilled to be in such a quaint and intimate location, where I could immerse myself in the southern provençal culture and improve my language skills as a French and Anthropology/Sociology double major from Denison University in Ohio. I met a group of lifelong friends from various parts of the U.S. and made meaningful connections with the faculty and staff at IAU.

"When I was abroad, I noticed that a common topic of discussion among my friends and I was our fluctuating feelings on living in a homestay. My peers at IAU thus inspired me to dedicate my senior research project in Sociology to studying the discriminatory experiences of students of color living in European homestays. As an African-American woman, I felt that it was necessary to highlight this issue in higher education opportunities that may not be recognized very often. I transferred the narratives of underrepresented students from various abroad programs through qualitative and quantitative research methods, to correlate to a broader scope of societal implications that are a result of the contemporary social, cultural, and political climate in Western European countries. I anticipate that the findings from my study can positively influence how off-campus study offices at collegiate institutions address social issues that their students of color may face abroad. Moreover, I hope that the results implement changes to the housing processes at abroad institutions with host families. I have since graduated from college in the Spring of 2018 and currently plan to start law school next Fall. I will continue to make strides in my communities to advocate and shed light on pertinent issues."

Great job, Drew! We can't wait to see what you do next!

Regiane Ocampo, an IAU student from Summer 2018, shares below how her time with IAU in Barcelona impacted her ceramics and sculpture practice. Read on for more from Regiane.

      

"My name is Regiane Ocampo. I was born in Brazil and moved to the United States in 2010 for an exchange program to study English. I immediately identified with the culture and New York would become the place I would marry my soulmate and call home. Three years ago, I took my first ceramics class in college and completely fell in love with clay. Ceramics became my biggest passion and aspiration. Since then, I have taken ceramics and sculpture classes every semester, all of which have been incredibly rewarding and I enjoy every minute of it!

"Currently, I am in my senior year at Lehman College in NY, pursuing a BFA in Ceramics/Sculpture. Knowing how important the thesis year would be, I thought it was a great idea to take the IAU Ceramic Sculpture course in Barcelona and Florence during the summer. My hope was to find some inspiration for my new body of work as I geared up towards my thesis show at Lehman College, and my solo show at the National Arts Club.

"Barcelona and Florence are both lively and charming places with an incredibly rich history and culture, as well as the home of some of the greatest architects, artists, and sculptors of all time. Being able to see such works in person allowed me to draw them from my own live observation with artistic detail. It offered me the opportunity to contemplate details such as the marks left by the artist’s tools on the surface of sculptures, which are very informative as they are reminiscent of the artist’s intentions and of the process of modeling the shapes. My time with IAU renewed my creativity and enthusiasm to keep challenging myself. It continues to give me the motivation to work hard throughout this year until my first solo show!"

Thanks for sharing your story, Regiane!

Would you mind telling us a little bit about yourself? 
"I studied at IAU in 1996. I'm originally from Maryland. Currently, I live in China - I've been here for 20 years. I did an MBA at Oxford, and also worked in Copenhagen. I work in venture capital investing in agtech with a mission to support the development of new technologies that allow the world to increase its food supply while decreasing the environmental impact of producing that food." 

How did your time abroad with IAU influence/inspire/change/or otherwise affect your life afterward?
"My time at IAU made me fall in love with travel and living abroad. Classes were great and I learned a lot at the school. Every day that we didn't have class, my friends and I set off for somewhere new. We did winter break in Morocco, spring break in Greece, weekends in London, Paris, Berlin, Barcelona, Oslo, and many other places. The IAU professors suggested small villages and out of the way places for us to visit that were the best parts of France. The family I lived with made the most amazing dinners every night of the week and I have been in love with good food ever since. Because of how exciting I found living in Aix, after IAU I went back to the States for 9 months to finish university and then I set off for China. Since then I've only been back to the States to visit."

Thanks for sharing your story, Brent!

  

Would you mind telling us a little bit about yourself? 
"I live in the heart of rural Provence where I have had a home since 1971. My first roommate from Aix and I came here that year with her husband and small child to raise goats and to live a pastoral life in what we both considered to be one of the most beautiful places on Earth. Although I discovered rather soon that I had neither the strength nor the skills to live the peasant life, I fell in love with the house as well as the village and many of its inhabitants, now close friends for whom I have enormous respect and affection. When we ended the goat cheese production, I kept the house but went to work in Paris at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). My daughter was born here and started school in the village. We returned to the United States in 1983. I completed my Ph.D. in political science at MIT and continued to work there as a lecturer and principal research scientist until I retired in 2003...the year my husband and I moved back to the house in Provence permanently. Since then, I have continued to consult with universities in both teaching and advising capacities in my specialty which is global environmental politics and 'sustainable development.'"

How did your time abroad with IAU influence/inspire/change/or otherwise affect your life afterward?
"The year I spent as a student at the IAU and the "Fac" in Aix was simply transformative. My home university had no formal "Junior Year Abroad" program, but the Institute made it possible through a pre-agreement on courses I would take to transfer credits back. It also made it possible to audit courses at the French University in Aix, which provided those of us who took classes there to enrich our French skills and to enter more fully into the French way of university life, while ensuring a continuum with our US-based programs. And what a life that was in the 1960s! This provided an unspoken and unfettered freedom to explore not only another culture but our own personal identity, our responses to new experiences and to new challenges, to find out who was that person I wanted to and would become. What made this possible was due in part to the absence of reliable and regular communication with the familiar and the past. This was after all decades before the advent of the personal computer and the internet, not to mention the cell phone, Facetime, and Skype. My year at IAU was like none other that came before and would influence all those that followed. It opened my mind and my heart to new ways of seeing, thinking and being -- as well as the making of life-long friends. It led me to my intellectual lodestar, "pole nord", compass. Who could ask for anything more?"

Thanks for sharing your story, Joanne!

 

Would you mind telling us a little bit about yourself?
"My name is Grace Escamilla and I'm a 31-year-old citizen of the world. I have lived in 6 different countries since I graduated from university in 2010 and have spent significant time in a couple more, including a year completing my M.A. at King's College London. I'm a lifelong learner, a revolutionary, a wanderer, a fighter, and am committed to seeing the end of sovereign nation-states (and thus the achievement of true universal human rights) within my lifetime. I hold a BA in Philosophy and an MA in Conflict, Security and Development, and am currently based in Istanbul working remotely as Programme Specialist for an Afghan NGO based in Kabul, Afghanistan. We work mostly on private sector development, job creation and entrepreneurship, returnee reintegration and women's empowerment. I absolutely love my job. I speak English, French, intermediate Spanish and Turkish, basic Arabic, and am learning Farsi. I keep active on the side doing research on global governance, partnering with other glocal (global + local) change-makers here in Istanbul and around the world on developing an international community, doing anything related to radical feminism, and dancing as much as I can. I plan to move back to Paris in a few years to make that my permanent home base."

How did your time abroad with IAU influence/inspire/change/or otherwise affect your life afterward?
"To be honest I have never really considered this question, but now that I am I realize that it may have been the turning point of my entire life. I have always been curious about the world, but growing up my family never had the means to travel abroad. My mom always told me to wait until university, where I could study abroad "for free" on my student loans. So I did, and IAU was the result. My time in France opened my eyes just enough to the world outside the U.S. and, though I went back to complete my BA in the States, the minute I had that degree in hand I caught the first flight to Paris with my summer savings and never looked back. My adult life really began at that moment. I studied art at IAU, by the way (Marchutz School of Art), and all I can say about that is--life is anything but a straight path (my career has nothing to do with art). However, I have for a long time thought of my life as a painting--a lifelong masterwork. You do not add things to your life for a scientific result, rather you add them because they fit in with the beauty that is there and the beauty that will be."

Thanks for sharing your story, Grace!