Getting Global at the University of Iowa
posted by Hanna Rosman
Photos of the Global Village Open House in the Fall semester. Photos by Hung Tran from International Accents at the UI.
A UI Living Learning Community gives UI students a new perspective on cultural diversity.
For UI Sophomore Alexander Vargas, the housing decision he made his freshman year was not a question of location, but a question of what he would get out of the experience of his first years at college. It was a way to have a piece of home in a new place. The Global Village living learning community serves as a place where students can have a piece of familiar culture while still allowing students to branch out and gain a fresh perspective.
“I chose to live in this community so that I could stay tuned to my roots because it was so different coming from a dominant Hispanic neighborhood to Iowa because there isn’t that type of place here,” Vargas said.
The Global Village in the 8th floor of Mayflower Hall serves as an ideal place to live because it allows students to have a sense of home. Even though this is the case, students have the ability to branch out of their own sense of culture and meet students from different corners of the world.
“As the year progressed, I interacted with more of the international students,” Vargas said. “I started exposing myself to more culture, mainly Chinese and Korean.”
This outreach for better understanding, as Denise Filios, a UI associate professor in Spanish and Portuguese, stated that this is the purpose of the floor.
“The Global Village is not just a language floor, but a culturally diverse place,” Filios said. “It’s a pretty unique opportunity [for students] where [they] get to live in an open, diverse environment and that’s pretty exciting.”
When choosing the location for the floor, Filios states that the Mayflower residence hall is the optimal place to have the Global Village living learning community because it has the environment to bring a community together. The kitchen space encourages community living because students can cook different kinds of meals together and sit down with each other and enjoy a meal. The friendships that are forged over these community activities come with ease and sometimes with a little difficulty. For Vargas, it was a challenge worth taking.
“The challenging part was trying to communicate with the rest of the students on the floor, mainly the international students,” Vargas said. “Obviously there are many barriers such as a language barrier where English is a problem for some and that goes for anyone.”
Some students on the floor desire to solely speak one language from their country of origin because it is familiar to them. The Global Village has a solution to the issue by pairing up students who desire to learn a language with those who wish to share it. The floor is a mix of speakers and learners of Spanish as well as other languages so that learning can extend out of the language department at the university and into practical use.
The floor is not just about breaking the language barrier, but about service projects to get involved with the Iowa City Community. The service projects that students do include a pen pal program with local junior high students, tutoring, Build-A-Bear fundraisers, the Big Brother, Big Sister program, and college mentoring for first generation Latino students. With mentoring, it’s a chance for students to reach out to younger generations regarding going to school.
“The purpose of college mentoring for younger students is to help visualize going to school at college,” Filios said.
This future is something that both students in the community and those who work with the floor are looking forward to. Both students and coordinators have high praise for the living learning community. In the next year, changes will be made to the floor to specifically match students who desire to learn and practice a new language with those who are avid to teach and share it with new people. For Alexander Vargas, it’s been well-spent years in college.
“It’s been almost two years that I have been living here and I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else,” Vargas said.
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Ready… Set… Run!
posted April 27, 2012 by Hanna Rosman
River Run will be on Sunday with the 5K run/walk and 10K run starting at 9a.m.
River Run 2012 is finally upon us! All of the sweat and tears this semester of runs in the cold and the rain will finally pay off. After you make it to the finish line with your hands up high like Rocky, you can join in on the Fitness Fair at the IMU where there will be food, drinks, and entertainment. The Fair will present health, fitness, and nutrition ideas. It’s a FREE way to learn about healthy living and to get ideas for a healthier you. If you didn’t run in the race, you can still stop by and learn a few things. For more information, head over to the River Run website.
Need a little motivation or inspiration for Sunday? Take a look at photos from last year!
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