"Implementing Undergraduate TAs in the Language Curriculum"
Mijeong Mimi Kim
Teaching Professor of Korean Language and Director of Undergraduate Studies, Washington University in St. Louis

This presentation examines the strategic integration of Undergraduate Teaching Assistants (UTAs) into the Korean language program at Washington University in St. Louis, drawing from 15 years of implementation experience. The model can be adapted across diverse language instruction contexts, offering valuable insights applicable to language programs more broadly. The presentation highlights how UTAs create opportunities for improved language proficiency, increased speaking confidence, and enhanced cultural understanding through structured peer interactions. By facilitating additional practice opportunities, UTAs help build supportive learning communities both within and beyond classroom settings.
The session provides practical frameworks for effective UTA recruitment, training, and retention strategies adaptable to various language programs. As integrated members of the language curriculum, UTAs receive course credit and benefit from experiential learning through direct teaching practice, exposure to diverse cultural perspectives, and reflective examination of their own language use. Furthermore, the UTA model promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion by incorporating varied linguistic and cultural perspectives into the learning environment. UTAs foster inclusive and accessible learning spaces where students comfortably practice language skills, addressing individual learner challenges through targeted supplemental support. UTAs link formal instruction to authentic language experiences, establishing meaningful pathways for language acquisition and cultivating inclusive learning communities where learning becomes a shared and enriching experience.

Bio: Mijeong Mimi Kim is a Teaching Professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Washington University in St. Louis, where she serves as Director of Undergraduate Studies. She also coordinated the Korean language program through 2024. Since joining the university in 2002, she has taught Korean at all levels, developed curricula for both traditional and heritage learners, and founded the WashU Coalition for Language Teaching and Learning, which promotes collaboration among language faculty and students.
Dr. Kim's interests include language pedagogy, curriculum design, and technology-enhanced instruction. Drawing on critical pedagogy, she creates content-based curricula that immerse students in Korean culture through media, fostering both language proficiency and cultural agency. She is co-author of several textbooks, including the You Speak Korean OER series (2023), Advanced Korean (2021), and Tigers, Fairies, and Gods: Enchanting Folktales from Korea (2019). She has served on the Executive Board of the American Association of Teachers of Korean (AATK) and contributed to national initiatives such as the Standards-Based Korean Language Curriculum project and the Korean Honor Society (KHS). Dr. Kim is committed to student-centered pedagogy that integrates cultural literacy into language education, recognizing its transformative potential in cultivating global citizenship.

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 Rise of OER in Language Teaching and Learning"
Fernando Rubio
Director of the Center for Language Study, Yale University

Compared with STEM fields, second language (L2) education has only recently begun to embrace open education and the new knowledge ecologies it produces. L2 educators may have been hesitant to participate in the open education movement due to a lack of research which investigates the benefits and challenges of L2 learning and teaching in open environments. This talk contextualizes open education in L2 learning and teaching in terms of a dynamic ecology, along with a discussion of how the open movement affects L2 education beyond the classroom context. Also discussed will be the new ways of creating, adapting, and curating OER for language learning.

Bio: Fernando Rubio currently serves as the Director of the Center for Language Study at Yale University. Prior to that, he was a Professor of Spanish Linguistics in the Department of World Languages and Cultures and co-founder and Director of the Second Language Teaching and Research Center at the University of Utah. Over the past two decades, he has been actively involved in various professional organizations, including The Modern Language Association, The College Board, and ACTFL. He also served as president of the National Federation of Modern Language Teachers Associations.
Dr. Rubio's research interests lie in the fields of applied linguistics and teaching methodologies, with a focus on technology-enhanced language learning and teaching. He is the author of two textbooks, Tercer Milenio (Kendall-Hunt, 2009) and Juntos (Cengage, 2018). Additionally, he has co-edited the volume Hybrid Language Teaching and Learning: Exploring Theoretical, Pedagogical and Curricular Issues (Heinle, 2012) and co-authored Creating Effective Blended Language Learning Courses: A Research-Based Guide from Planning to Evaluation (Cambridge UP, 2020), which was honored with the 2019-2020 MLA Mildenberger Prize.

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.

Last Public Issues Forum

This film series has been created to celebrate the new minor in Caribbean Studies. It invites viewers to reflect on the Caribbean as a space of media creation, as well as to consider social issues of global concern from the perspective of the Caribbean. With films from Colombia, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic, this series aims to consider different parts of the Caribbean, allowing for a reflection on how the region is affected by geopolitics at a global scale, national politics, and by social issues including race, gender, sexual orientation and class. It also insists on and highlights the possibility and the power in narrating and creating from the margins, emphasizing the Caribbean not only as a subject matter but also and especially as agent and creator of languages, worlds, and ways of resistance.

The schedule would be as follows:

Monday, September 15 at 6pm - Memorias del subdesarrollo (Tomás Gutiérrez, Cuba, 1968) Monday, September 22 at 6pm - Cocote (Nelson Arias de los Santos, 2017, Dominican Republic) Monday, September 29 at 6pm - La estrategia del mero (Edgar de Luque Jácome, 2022, Colombia)

Join us this year for Bienvenidos 2025! It will be an incredible time to learn more about the LatinX student organizations, resources, music, performances, and more! We hope you're ready to mingle and enjoy light foods/refreshments Party popper

Food Provided- RSVP required for food lineup!

Note: After registration you will be redirected to sign a waiver for some of the activities we'll have a Bienvenidos! Please make sure to sign the quick waiver in order to participate. Thank you.

OPEN TO THE CORNELL COMMUNITY!

Hosted by the Latino Living Center.

The Einaudi Global Research Fellows Program supports PhD students, postdocs, visiting scholars, and local academics who are deeply engaged in research that bridges international or regional studies with critical examinations of global challenges.

Eligible students:
• Have completed at least two years of graduate education
• Engaged in research on a topic of global or regional studies significance
• Hold a strong desire to impact global challenges and create real-world solutions
• Interested in engaging and collaborating with other researchers

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

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The Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies hosts info sessions for graduate and for undergraduate students to learn more about funding opportunities, international travel, research, and internships. View the full calendar of fall semester sessions.

Come to the LRC to practice your language skills and meet new people. Conversation Hours provide an opportunity to use the target language in an informal, low-pressure atmosphere. Have fun practicing a language you are learning! Gain confidence through experience! Just using your new language skills helps you learn more than you might think. Conversation Hours are open to any learner, including the public.

Join us this summer to practice your language skills and meet new people. Conversation Hours provide an opportunity to use the target language in an informal, low-pressure atmosphere. Have fun practicing a language you are learning! Gain confidence through experience! Just using your new language skills helps you learn more than you might think. Conversation Hours are open to any learner, including the public.

Resisting Authoritarianism: The Political Journey and Mysterious Deaths of Two Young Americans in Pinochet’s Chile.

Allende’s revolution promised real democracy and real social change. It inspired idealistic young people from all over to travel to Chile to participate. Many who came were political exiles from South American countries that had become dictatorships. It was a political journey, full of hope. It ended in a military coup, encouraged by the United States, in which thousands were rounded up and executed. Two Norteamericanos—Charles Horman and Frank Teruggi—were secretly executed, and their murders inspired the Hollywood movie Missing. John Dinges was also in Chile at the time of the coup. His book tells what really happened. His surprising findings shed light not only on an iconic period in Latin America but provide signposts for the current slide toward authoritarianism in the United States.

John Dinges is a former foreign correspondent and the author of three books on major events involving the United States and Latin America. He was a special correspondent in Chile and Central America for The Washington Post, where he also worked as a foreign desk editor. He served as deputy foreign editor and managing editor of National Public Radio News. Mr. Dinges is the recipient of the Maria Moors Cabot Prize for excellence in Latin American reporting, and the Media Award of the Latin American Studies Association. He also shared two DuPont-Columbia University prizes for broadcast journalism, as NPR managing editor. He is currently on the faculty of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He has an MA in Latin American studies from Stanford University.

Chronic Kidney Disease of non-traditional causes (CKDnt) is among the first pathologies to be directly associated with climate change, and it has become a case study in the emerging field of “planetary health.” While its exact origins remain unknown, leading theories suggest that CKDnt is triggered by exposure to extreme heat. A desire to test that hypothesis has drawn occupational and environmental health researchers to sites where CKDnt is widespread. Perhaps most prominent among these is the sugarcane zone of western Nicaragua, where thousands of laborers have been diagnosed with kidney disease. In this talk, I develop a critical anthropological approach to planetary health, arguing that the recent focus on mitigating workplace heat exposure elides other environmental health concerns regarding industrial sugar production, particularly about the use of toxic agrochemicals. The systematic push by corporations and transnational scientists to find ways to profitably produce sugarcane under conditions of extreme heat is paralleled by the efforts of sugarcane zone residents to make knowledge claims about the slower and more accretive changes in climate wrought by chemically driven cane production.

Alex Nading is Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Anthropology at Cornell University. He is the former editor (2021-2024) of Medical Anthropology Quarterly and author of two books, Mosquito Trails: Ecology, Health, and the Politics of Entanglement (2014) and The Kidney and the Cane: Planetary Health and Plantation Labor in Nicaragua (2025). His research and teaching interests include the anthropology of health, the environment, infrastructure, and science, and his latest project examines the relationship between technologies of personal protection and planetary ecological change.