"Advancing Second Language Proficiency and Intercultural Competence in Postsecondary Education"
LRC Signature Speaker
LeAnne Spino
Associate Professor of Spanish, Proficiency Coordinator, and Director of International Studies and Diplomacy, University of Rhode Island

This is a pivotal moment for language programs. Enrollments in languages other than English are plummeting across the United States. Also in flux is the landscape of higher education more generally. In this climate of uncertainty, language programs must be able to clearly and convincingly articulate their value. Yet how can we effectively make these arguments?

There are, of course, many possible strategies for demonstrating and communicating the value of language programs. In this talk, I will detail one possible approach, resulting from a deep realignment across six degree-granting language programs at the University of Rhode Island that sought to advance students' language proficiency and intercultural competence. We will explore what these constructs are, the extent to which they develop in postsecondary studies, and how they can be framed to university leadership, faculty, and students to successfully communicate at least part of the value of a postsecondary language education.

Bio: Dr. Spino (Spino-Seijas) received her Ph.D. from Michigan State University in Second Language Studies. She is currently an Associate Professor of Spanish at the University of Rhode Island and the Proficiency Coordinator for the Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures, where she spearheads the Department’s Proficiency Initiative. This initiative seeks to increase students' language proficiency through faculty training, large-scale proficiency testing, and evidence-based curricular revamping. Dr. Spino is also the Director of the International Studies and Diplomacy program, a dual degree program in which students major in International Studies and a language, study abroad for at least a semester, and reach a high proficiency benchmark in the language they study before graduation.
Dr. Spino specializes in second language acquisition. Much of her research focuses on issues that impact language teaching directly. She is particularly interested in the development of second language proficiency and the sociopolitics of language acquisition and pedagogy, especially as it pertains to heritage language speakers of Spanish.

This event will be held in person in G25 Stimson and will also be streamed live over Zoom (registration required). Join us at the LRC or on Zoom.

The event is free and open to the public.

The Fulbright U.S. Student Program supports U.S. citizens to study, conduct research in any field, or teach English in more than 150 countries. The program is open to graduate students, recent graduates, and young professionals. Undergraduate students who wish to begin the program immediately after graduation are encouraged to start the process in their junior year. Recent graduates are welcome to apply through Cornell.

The Fulbright program at Cornell is administered by the Mario Einaudi Center for International studies. Applicants are supported through all stages of the application and are encouraged to start early by contacting fulbright@einaudi.cornell.edu.

Register for the virtual session.

Can’t attend? Contact fulbright@einaudi.cornell.edu.

Civilians have long developed strategies to protect themselves and others in the face of violence. Over the past two decades, research on civilian self-protection (CSP) has documented these practices across diverse conflict settings, challenging the assumption that protection is primarily delivered by states or international actors. Today, this insight has taken on renewed urgency. Civilian casualties, displacement, and violations of international humanitarian law have surged, while international assistance has become increasingly fragmented and unreliable. In this context, civilian self-protection is not peripheral but central to how civilians navigate insecurity and survive.

In this talk, I examine what the current moment reveals about CSP and its limits. Drawing on my recent work on civilian protective agency, the risks of international engagement, and the role of digital technologies, I synthesize key insights from the CSP literature and assess why international efforts to recognize or support these practices—often framed through the language of localization—have remained partial, contested, and fraught with risk. I then analyze how information and communication technologies are reshaping civilian agency by amplifying coordination and visibility while simultaneously producing new forms of exposure and vulnerability. Taken together, the talk asks how civilian self-protection reshapes conflict dynamics, redistributes risk, and complicates prevailing assumptions about responsibility, authority, and protection itself.

About the speaker

Emily Paddon Rhoads is Associate Professor of Political Science at Swarthmore College, where she teaches courses in international relations, comparative politics, and peace and conflict studies. Her research examines how protection, legitimacy, and trust are constructed when formal institutions are strained or contested, and how communities, local and global, organize safety and cooperation under conditions of violence, crisis, and political fragmentation.

Host

The Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies, part of the Einaudi Center for International Studies

Co-sponsor

The Gender and Security Sector Lab

A workshop with Joanna Krenz to discuss two papers she authored:

Programmer as Translator: The LHC of Chinese Artificial Intelligence Poetry

Virtual Conciliation: (Un-)Coding the Split between Tradition and Modernity in Chinese Artificial Intelligence Poetry

The workshop will focus on artificial intelligence (AI) poetry as a form of translation, understood here as the translation of a particular paradigm of poeticity operative within Chinese society into virtual reality. We will address three dimensions of this process—linguistic, human, and cultural—while identifying moments of unavoidable failure and examining their artistic and social consequences. The discussion will be preceded by a general introduction to the history and context of AI poetry in China, based on my research to date.

Joanna Krenz is Assistant Professor of Modern Chinese Language and Literature at the Institute of Oriental Studies, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland. She translates and publishes widely on Chinese poetry and prose. She is the author of In Search of Singularity: Poetry from Poland and China Since 1989 (Brill, 2022). She is currently working on the project The World Re-Versed: New Phenomena in Chinese Poetry as a Challenge and Inspiration to Literary Studies.

About the East Asia Program

As Cornell’s hub for research, teaching, and engagement with East Asia, the East Asia Program (EAP) is a forum for the interdisciplinary study of historical and contemporary East Asia. Part of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, the program draws its membership of over 45 core faculty and numerous affiliated faculty, graduate, and undergraduate students from across Cornell's colleges and schools.