IU Global – Page 7 – Passport to the World

Meet the international students welcoming the next generation to IU

Posted on March 23, 2023 by Lexi Baker

*Bloomington International Student Ambassadors walk on campus*

Studying in another country can be daunting. When it comes to navigating an entirely new culture and environment, everything – from the language, customs, and social norms – can be different from what students are used to. As challenging as the experience is, there are resources available to help international students navigate their transition to IU, resources like the International Student Ambassadors (ISA).

The ISAs operate on both the Bloomington and Indianapolis campuses under the Office of International Services (Bloomington) and Office of International Affairs (Indianapolis). ISA’s members are international students who have already gone through the experience of moving to a new country and understand the challenges that come with it; as such, they are uniquely positioned to offer guidance and support to prospective international students.

The main goal of ISA is to welcome and assist international applicants. This includes helping with the application process, answering questions about the university and the host country, and offering advice on how to make the most of the international education experience. Each year, these student workers help hundreds of prospective and new students navigate applying to IU and on the way to their joining the Hoosier state’s community. ISAs are dedicated, passionate students who use their experiences, interests, and skills to make IU a welcoming and supportive environment for international students. The group provides a supportive community for international students, guidance and support for prospective applicants, and opportunities for leadership and personal growth. Ambassadors come from a wide range of countries, cultures, majors, and communities, creating a unique community that benefits all of IU – through their art, their leadership, and their experiences, ambassadors enrich the university community, creating a culture of creativity, excellence, and inclusion.

We sat down with four of this year’s ISAs to hear more about the experience of going from new international students to IU experts shepherding the next generation of undergraduates and graduates to college success.

Click here to meet the ISA’s

50 Years of Jewish community at home and abroad

Posted on March 1, 2023 by Lexi Baker

In May 2022, IU graduates in caps, gowns, and colored tassels lined up in the late spring heat. Between shifting peers, waves to smiling guests in the stands, and the swift exchange of degrees and handshakes onstage, it was hard to focus on one student in particular. But in that bustling line was Levi Gettleman, an award-winning graduate of the Borns Jewish Studies Program, one of the nation’s largest, oldest, and most comprehensive programs of its kind.

50 years ago, Jewish culture at IU took two great leaps forward that have defined the experiences of students, faculty, and international partners alike in the decades that followed – the first study abroad trip to Israel and establishment of the Jewish Studies Program on the Bloomington campus. From a group of IU students exploring the early stages of a budding partnership abroad, all the way to a student waiting for his name to be called at commencement, draw his time at IU to a close, and continue toward his future.

Though Levi was only at IU for three years, graduating early and beginning rabbinical studies the next fall, he reflects on the faculty and community that he grew alongside in his short but impactful time at IU: “There’s something remarkable about the feeling of belonging and having a place where I can be my true, authentic self.”

But how did IU get to this point?

In 1971, a handful of Indiana University study abroad students arrived at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJ), the first Israel-based exchange in IU’s history. They had few expectations; there was no handbook to guide them through the process as they grabbed their belongings and headed to their new home for the semester.

*Terry Hendin and HUJ Rabbinical student Michael Mitgang*

Part of signing up for study abroad is stepping outside of your expectations and seeing the world, but in the first few days of jet lag, culture shock, and adjustment, the reality feels overwhelming. Terry Hendin and her future husband Ron Hendin were among those first study abroad students in 1971, and despite—or perhaps because of—the difficulties of navigating an entirely new system in a new culture, they gained invaluable experiences that they took home and shared with others.

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Celebrating the global in Indy, the IUPUI International Festival returns in-person

Posted on February 21, 2023 by Marielle Michael Petranoff

After two years of virtual and hybrid events, the energy and excitement of an in-person celebration of the Indianapolis campus’ global community returned for the 2023 IUPUI International Festival. On February 14, 2023, the Campus Center once again buzzed with the chatter of countless student organizations, the vibrance of live international music, the smells of food from around the world, and the joy of people connecting. Though the event has been held for over 15 years, this was the first time since 2020 that it could return to its full capacity.

Mascot Jaws poses with Interim Chancellor Klein, Associate Vice Chancellor Kahn, and fesitval participants
A student selects a flag for the 360 photo booth
DesiJags, the Indian student group performs
Students and Indiana Association of Chinese Americans Lion dancers pose with drums and flags

It was Latino Student Association Secretary and IUPUI sophomore Melanie Reyes’ first festival, and though she was tabling for the student organization, it didn’t disappoint. “I never noticed how many organizations are here on campus. Like looking around, looking down[stairs], I’m like, oh my God, this is so much! It’s so cool to know that there’s all these communities coming together.”

Graduate student Mounisha of DesiJags echoed that enthusiasm. In her first semester as an international student from India, she shared “I’m feeling very excited to see each and every country flag represented here. No one gets an opportunity to know about different kinds of cultures and different types of countries just in one place! But I got the opportunity to!”

Visitors to the festival could interact with dozens of campus organizations, sample international food from Chartwells, get their photos taken with the international flag of their choice at a 360 degree photo booth, and more, all while attending informative lectures on the third floor and enjoying musical performances from student and local cultural groups alike. A virtual scavenger hunt encouraged students to go beyond admiring the decorations and moving on, rewarding them for engaging with other students, cultures, ideas, and foods.

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Ferguson International Center opening for business on the IU Bloomington campus

Posted on February 16, 2023 by Brittaney Hartzer

Newly constructed building on a sunny day. — *The newly constructed Ferguson International Center is located in the heart of campus.*

The Stephen L. and Connie J. Ferguson International Center, situated across the street from the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, will create a hub for global culture and learning at Indiana University and the IU Bloomington campus. Located on the corner of Eagleson Avenue and Seventh Street, this will be IU’s home for international activities from current study abroad and international students to over 40 globally engaged alumni chapters around the world. The Office of the Vice President for International Affairs (OVPIA) is beginning to move into the new building, uniting all of IU Global’s Bloomington-based staff under one roof for the first time.

This building is more than just a space—it is a commitment to carrying forward IU’s ongoing legacy of global engagement. It will enable IU Global to support international and intercultural learning for all IU students. The new center will foster greater interaction and collaboration between international students and those who study abroad, while providing space for meetings and other functions by the roughly 100 formal and informal internationally focused student organizations on the Bloomington campus.

The Ferguson International Center will be the core of international programming and student activities on campus and serve as a venue for hosting foreign academic and government delegations, highlighting our standing as one of the country’s most globally engaged universities.

Creating a home for international programs and services in the heart of our campus recognizes the critical importance of global engagement to an IU education.
Vice President for International Affairs Hannah Buxbaum

After a groundbreaking that just barely preceded the pandemic and three years of construction, all operations are scheduled to be running out of the new building this semester. IU Global departments will be moving in over the winter months, including the Office of Overseas Study, Office of International Services, International Partnerships, Global Gateway Network, and the Office of International Development. Each department will reach out to their constituents to advise on when their services have moved into the new building and are operational.

Front desk
First floor lobby
Reception room on fourth floor
Conference rooms and event spaces are located on the fourth floor.
The Ferguson International Center design complements the Mies van der Rohe building across the street.

Of course, none of this would be possible without the generous $5 million gift from IU alumni Steve and Connie Ferguson, that partially funded the building.

Connie and I have traveled the globe, meeting many wonderful people and developing meaningful friendships. We believe the world would be a better place if everyone had those opportunities. This center will enable students to become truly global citizens: it will serve as a home-away-from-home for our international students and be a one-stop central resource of services for IU students as they consider venturing abroad and developing their own deep international relationships. We are honored and proud that it carries our name.
Stephen Ferguson, JD’76, DHL’18
Chairman of the Board, Cook Group Incorporated

Vice President Buxbaum and all IU Global staff look forward to welcoming the IU community into our new space after the formal dedication ceremony with the President’s Office later in spring 2023.

The Impacts and Influence of Elinor and Vincent Ostrom Live on in China

Posted on February 8, 2023 by Steven Yin

In December 2022, a group of Ostrom scholars from various leading Chinese universities hosted a virtual event to honor the lives and works of Distinguished Indiana University Professor Elinor Ostrom, 2009 winner of Noble Prize in Economic Sciences, and her husband Vincent Ostrom who was also a world-renowned scholar in political science. This event was organized to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of their passing and was attended by over 400 participants including activists, community leaders, and practitioners who implemented the concept of self-governance at a local level.

The esteemed couple, and the workshop named after them, are all highly respected and very well known in the country. Over the past two decades, a large number of Chinese scholars have studied and visited the Ostrom Workshop. They brought back to China not only the knowledge they gained from the two academic masters, but also their inspiring life attitude and spirit of continuously pursuing academic excellence. For many, Elinor and Vincent are not only their dear teachers but also their role models.

Scholars and graduate students from Tsinghua University (Tsinghua), Peking University (PKU), Renmin University of China (RUC), and Chinese University of Political Science and Law (CUPL) gave presentations and passionately reflected upon their personal experiences in learning with the Ostroms. The event was attended by hundreds of scholars across China, emphasizing the depth and breadth of the impact that Indiana University has across the country, both academically and in practical applications of their work.

The event started with a short preview of the film Actual World, Possible Future.This WTIU documentary film from 2020 about the Ostroms was only recently translated into Chinese by Professor Shoulong MAO and Professor Youhong CHEN from RUC, and Professor Jianxun WANG from CUPL, who also helped to coordinate part of the film’s production in China. They shared stories about filming in China and the translation process, then kicked off a series of presentations and personal remembrances that exemplified the real-world impacts of the Ostrom Workshop in China.

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Intercultural competency for all IU in this free certificate program

Posted on January 31, 2023 by Lexi Baker

Cultural awareness can start as simply as writing an email. In fact, that is where this year’s Intercultural Competency Certificate program begins.

In the first of nine interactive 1.5 hour sessions, professionally trained IU staff members walk participants through a familiar scenario: you sent out what you thought was a clearly written, concise email and receive an abrupt, unintelligible response. Through this near-universal experience, trainers begin to unpack the complex and nuanced subject of “intercultural competency,” with the hope that participants will leave this session not only writing better emails, but approaching every interaction with better understanding of the many experiences and values that influence how a person interacts with the world.

The Intercultural Competence Certificate (ICC) is an opportunity for IU employees to expand their understanding of communication and connection across cultural boundaries. The program is designed to be an individualized, interactive experience that addresses intercultural differences and their impact on personal and professional experiences for any IU employee.

“In a university as large and involved as IU, it’s easy for departments to become siloed, but making meaningful connections isn’t the duty of just a single group,” shares Rachel Salinas, director of international admissions and one of the first trainers for the certificate. “The Intercultural Competence Certificate makes cultural competency a campus-wide responsibility.”

But how did this initiative come about?

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Experimental German theater comes to life in Bloomington, crossing borders and boundaries

Posted on January 23, 2023 by Marielle Michael Petranoff

In mid-November of last year, Professor Teresa Kovacs was able to bring a piece of German experimental theater to Bloomington’s campus with the conference Diffractive World-Making: Theatre & Science Beyond the Capitalocene.

You are most likely to see the term “diffraction” in a scientific context: it is the way that particles bend, interact with, and are shaped by moving around obstacles. When applied to light, diffraction can be thought of as the way that the particles and waves warp and pass through lenses. However, theoretical physicist and feminist theorist Karen Barad does not take such a straightforward approach: in their writing, diffraction makes everything both old and new, here and there, individual in isolation and constantly in conversation with everything else. These types of seemingly contradictory notions appear all over quantum physics, but what happens when you take these concepts out of science and bring them into art?

For Teresa Kovacs this question is at the core of her academic research as assistant professor of Germanic Studies and adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Theatre, Drama and Contemporary Dance. Her focus is on how theatre makers push this artform beyond the “traditional notion of drama” and into our technoscientific age. With experimental German theatre as the backdrop, Kovacs explores how by turning convention on its head and questioning what the fabric of theatre—performance—really is, playwrights actively converse with the most pressing political, social, and scientific concepts of our time.

“It really started with this idea of bringing just one playwright together with one theorist… what happens if the two of them meet?” Kovacs muses. This simple premise led her to move the theoretical into the practical, working with Berlin-based playwright Kevin Rittberger to create an in-person conference to answer just that. As one of Barad’s texts spoke of meeting the universe halfway, Kovacs cultivated a joining of minds: “Let’s do this meeting halfway between theatre and quantum physics.”

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Indiana University’s Mexico Gateway welcomes a new academic director

Posted on January 12, 2023 by Molly Fisher

Indiana University’s Mexico Gateway, located in Mexico City, is pleased to welcome Professor J. César Félix-Brasdefer as the new academic director. Based in Bloomington, he joins the IU Mexico Gateway team to further our gateway’s mission to support IU faculty, staff, students, alumni, and partners to advance their academic and professional interests in Mexico, the Caribbean, Central, and South America.

Indiana University, across its campuses, has a broad range of faculty, students, and alumni engaged in interdisciplinary research and creative activity in the sciences, medicine, arts and humanities, education, business, public health, and environmental affairs, among other disciplines. I am excited to help connect IU faculty and students with fellow experts in their fields and promote collaboration in institutions of higher education in Mexico, the Caribbean, as well as Central and South America. With Spanish and Portuguese as global languages, I look forward to expanding IU’s internationalization mission with other gateways, fostering awareness of linguistic diversity among indigenous languages, strengthening the visibility of IU faculty, and promoting student mobility throughout Latin America. I am thrilled to work with the professional and knowledgeable staff at the IU Mexico gateway.
J. César Félix-Brasdefer

Professor J. César Félix-Brasdefer brings ample experience and expertise to his role as academic director where he will work with the Mexico Gateway staff and colleagues at IU Global to promote research and academic activities between IU faculty and students in Latin America. He aims to engage IU’s faculty in academic discussions, to further promote the internationalization of IU study abroad programs, and to foster IU intellectual exchange through collaborative conferences.

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IU’s Europe Gateway welcomes new director

Posted on January 10, 2023 by Annabell Türk

With the New Year, Indiana University’s Europe Gateway in Berlin welcomes its new director Dr. Katrin Völkner. She joins the team of Academic Director Professor Timothy Hellwig, based in Bloomington, and Program & Communications Manager Annabell Türk, based in Berlin.

An experienced educator and higher education administrator, Dr. Völkner has dedicated her career to advancing and nurturing cross-cultural learning opportunities and exchanges across academic disciplines and national borders. As a graduate of both German and American institutions, and as a dual citizen, she is deeply committed to supporting transatlantic educational and research cooperation, and IU’s international engagement.

“I am thrilled to be working for a U.S. university again. It feels like a homecoming,” said Völkner. “It’s wonderful to support IU’s ambitious global engagement agenda and to be able to interact with students, faculty, and alumni alike.”

Originally from Berlin, Völkner moved to the United States to pursue her graduate studies after finishing her undergraduate work at Freie Universität Berlin. She first traveled across the Atlantic on a family trip to Seattle where she had a chance to visit the University of Washington. After this experience, she was determined to return to the United States as a student and was excited to spend a year at in St. Louis where she completed her master’s degree at Washington University. She later obtained her PhD in interdisciplinary German Studies from Duke University.

In her role as faculty member and director of the Multimedia Learning Center at Northwestern University, she co-led the Global Languages Initiative, a multi-year effort that supported foreign language learning and global engagement throughout the university community.

After more than 20 years in the United States, Katrin returned to her hometown in 2015 and worked for the Council on International Educational Exchange. In her most recent position at the University of Potsdam, Katrin managed a transdisciplinary and multi-professional team focused on improving educational practices.

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Partnerships and the Parthenon: the long history between Greece and IU

Posted on December 12, 2022 by Lexi Baker

It’s evening in Athens when the music starts. It’s a welcome call to IU study abroad students; after days of travel, meetings, and too many handshakes to count, the 24 business students finally have a chance to pull back from conference room discussions and take to the bustling crowds of the city. Though they’re far from home—well over five thousand miles from the Bloomington campus—they find themselves falling into place alongside Greek students, eagerly joining them in a pastime that both groups know well: dance.

American dances, like many things in the United States, are direct. Think of the Cha Cha Slide—the lyrics literally give you instructions! IU students quickly find that’s not the case in Greece. There’s certainly no enthusiastic voice telling you which direction to slide, when to clap your hands, or just how smooth to cha-cha.

In traditional Greek dances the spirit of community forms itself into a circle of dancers. Anyone can join and you don’t need a partner. Outsiders are welcomed into the circle and learn the steps in real time by following the people on either side of them, no translations necessary. The act of inviting outsiders into the circle is philoxenia, friendliness towards the stranger, a concept as ancient as the dance itself…and it works just as well today as it has throughout history! Despite the differences in their steps, the students meet each other on the dance floor and move to the music, sparking a connection that burns across any cultural divides.

Low angled view of ancient columns against a blue sky — *View of the Acropolis, Athens (Megan Bankowski, 21-22 study abroad)*

IU’s connection with Greece didn’t start with dance (as groovy as that might be). Over 70 years before these students connected with their Greek counterparts, one of IU’s most recognizable figures made his way to the Mediterranean. Herman B Wells was initially called to Greece on behalf of Indiana University in 1946 to observe the first election following World War II. An outspoken advocate for international partnerships, Wells encouraged connections with Greece and its culture—as well as all world cultures—long after returning from the trip. In 1950, the first summer language workshop in less commonly taught languages was conducted under the encouragement of President Wells. The next year, he established the International Center on the Bloomington campus for student use, and the connection to Greece was not forgotten.

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