Category: News

Mountaineer and photographer Jimmy Chin will present the opening night film at this year’s 41 North Film Festival with his award-winning film Meru. The festival runs from October 23 to the 25th in the Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts and will showcase 17 independent films from all over the world, two featured filmmakers, and an Oculus Rift exhibition. “I travel to film festivals during the year and try hard to keep up with what’s happening in independent cinema,” said festival director Erin Smith. “I pay particular attention to what the community here would be interested in, as well as to programming films that are receiving critical acclaim.”

The opening night film Meru tells a captivating story about risk, determination and friendship, following the efforts of three internationally famous climbers (Chin among them) to reach the Shark’s Fin summit of Mount Meru in the Himalayas. Smith said, “This is the biggest event we’ve ever organized for the festival.” Chin is an award-winning photographer whose work has been featured regularly in National Geographic, and his film won the 2015 Sundance Audience Award. Meru will be shown at 7:30 p.m., Friday, Oct. 23. Chin will speak after the film, answering questions and meeting with students.

Another festival highlight is a new documentary about the Taser Corporation, Killing Them Safely. With significant implications for engineering ethics and marketing, this documentary investigates how a weapon marketed as “safe” has become responsible for scores of deaths each year. The film will be shown at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 24 with director and journalist Nick Berardini present.

How and Why Films Get Made

Smith, who is also director of the Humanities Digital Media Zone and teaches digital media and film, said the festival was started eleven years ago to help film students consider the context of film viewing and how and why films get made outside of the dominant Hollywood system. “A festival setting is a much different experience than watching a movie at home or even in a multiplex theater,” she said. As the festival has evolved, it has come to involve more of the Michigan Tech and surrounding community each year.

“I think it’s a unique opportunity for students to view films that we really don’t get access to up here,” said Daniel Grayvold, a fourth-year sound design student. “There’s something for everybody.”

On Sunday, Oct. 25, Drone will be shown at 3:30 p.m. with a panel discussion following about drone use in the military. Help Side will be shown at 6:30 p.m. A documentary premiere for recent Michigan Tech graduate and former basketball player Jillian Ritchie, it is a compelling coming-of-age story that takes on the serious subject of sexual assault.

Among some of the other films screening during the weekend are The Wanted 18, King Georges, Here Come the Videofreex, and T-Rex. Closing the festival is the uplifting and inspiring documentary Mavis! about legendary gospel and blues singer Mavis Staples.

Virtual Reality

The festival will also offer festival goers a chance to try out Oculus Rift virtual reality technology. Projects featured include Herders, which provides an immersive cinematic look into the lives of Mongolian yak herders, and Ferguson Firsthand, which recreates the location of last year’s Ferguson, Missouri shooting and allows users to encounter different perspectives on the event.

Festival sponsors include the Michigan Tech Departments of Humanities and Visual and Performing Arts, the Van Evera Distinguished Lecture Series at the Rozsa Center, Student Affairs and Advancement, the College of Sciences and Arts, Pavlis Honors College, University Marketing and Communication, Career Services, Institutional Equity and Inclusion, the Departments of Social Sciences and Computer Science, the Indigenous Issues Discussion Group, Downwind Sports, and the Continental Fire Company. “The amount of support is really great and a sign that the festival is valuable to our culture here,” said Smith. “I’m grateful for all of it.”

All events are free and open to the public. The festival website with the full schedule and program is online at http://41northfilmfest.org. For more information about the festival and its events, contact Erin Smith at ersmith@mtu.edu.

(This article by Monica Lester originally appeared in Tech Today.)

The French director Agnès Varda will be in residence at the University of Chicago in October. We have an exciting event scheduled to celebrate her work and life.

On Wednesday, Sept. 30, Café Francais will host a look at Varda’s work in Walker 134 at 5 p.m. And, thanks to the French Embassy, Michigan Tech is one of nine universities selected to participate in a webinar with the renowned director. It will take place on Friday, October 9 at 8 pm in Walker 120A.

Michigan Tech’s Humanities Department will host an international conference, the bi-annual meeting of the American Society of Exile Studies, Friday and Saturday.

Guy Stern, former German professor and Provost of Wayne State University, will be the guest of honor. His keynote address will be at 1 p.m. on Saturday at the Great Lakes Research Center, and will focus on the “Future of Exile Studies.”

(This article originally appeared in Tech Today.)

The Michigan Tech Graduate School has announced the following Humanities graduate student award recipients:

CGS/ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award Nominee

Gary Kaunonen, PhD Graduate in Rhetoric, Theory and Culture

Doctoral Finishing Fellowship

Rebecca Frost, PhD Candidate in Rhetoric, Theory and Culture

You can find more information on the Graduate School’s Awards and Fellowships page.

Conversation Partners is an opportunity that pairs students in the Intensive English as a Second Language (IESL) program with more proficient English speaking members of the Michigan Tech community. The program is open to students, faculty and staff. Participants commit to one-hour a week of one-on-one informal conversation by signing a contract with the IESL program for one semester. The contract commits them to meet their partner in public places on campus for a minimum of one hour a week.

IESL is offering this opportunity again for the fall semester; consider giving an international student an hour of your time. It makes an enormous difference.

How the program works: 

1. Interested students, faculty, and staff members may download and complete a form. 
2. IESL matches students with participants. The program makes every effort to match people of the same gender though sometimes this may be difficult. IESL will always check with volunteers before matching them with someone of the opposite gender.
   
3. IESL introduces the conversation partners to each other at an initial meeting. Both parties sign a contract stating that they will meet on campus once a week for the duration of the semester.
   
4. Though partners meet independently, Listening and Speaking teachers will often check in with students.
   
5. If there are any concerns, we ask that volunteers contact the IESL program as soon as possible.

Why participate in this opportunity? As a member of the Michigan Tech community, there are many reasons why you should consider and commit to being conversation partner. Here are some of them:

1. Make a new friend and create a potentially rewarding friendship
   
2. Help an international student understand American culture and society
   
3. Experience the contemporary global landscape from the unique perspective of one of our international students
   
4. Develop deeper cultural awareness and understanding by through a sustained conversation with someone from a different country
   
5. Participate in promoting rewarding cross-language relations and cross-cultural dialogue on campus

The role of a Conversation Partner: As a partner your main responsibility is to offer your IESL student conversation practice. At times you may have to explain English language points but we are not asking you to be an English as a Second Language teacher. The goal is for your conversation partner to have plenty of speaking and listening practice.

The IESL program can provide ideas for your weekly meetings at the program’s preliminary meeting. Those who have participated have found the experience rewarding. We urge others to give it a try. Contact IESL with questions at iesl@mtu.edu.

(This article originally appeared in Tech Today.)

After undergoing a rigorous three-year process of measuring its performance against the 44 standards of the Commission on English Language Program Accreditation (CEA), Michigan Tech’s Intensive English as a Second Language (IESL) program has secured a five-year initial CEA accreditation (August 2015-August 2020). CEA is recognized by the U.S. Secretary of Education as a national accrediting body for English language programs and institutions. The Commission leads the field of language teaching and learning via rigorous standards and processes of transparent and accountable peer review.

Tech’s IESL program was established to help improve the English language proficiency of international students who meet all of the university’s academic admissions requirements. This accreditation review, the first external evaluation of the program since its inception in 2000, culminated in a three-day site visit last spring.  Tech’s was one of twelve programs seeking initial accreditation, and was one of only five programs granted the full five-year accreditation.

According to Bruce Seely, Dean of the College of Sciences and Arts, the visiting accreditation team was extremely complimentary about Tech’s program.  To a significant extent, that positive stance stemmed from the efforts of Beatrice Smith, director of the program and professor of Humanities, and the IESL faculty, who have revamped and significantly improved the IESL curriculum and content in recent years.  As a result, the visitors stated they would recommend that Beatrice’s report become a model for other schools.  “Beatrice worked incredibly hard to insure that the Tech program met the CEA accreditation standards and this outcome is a tribute to the dedication and commitment exhibited by her and the IESL faculty. They did a superb job, and we deeply appreciate their efforts.”

With accreditation, IESL agrees to uphold CEA standards for language programs and institutions.  The letter granting accreditation states, “In reviewing a program or institution, the Commission seeks to determine that mission and educational objectives are being communicated and met; that performance with respect to student achievement is being realized; that the program or institution is organized so that its mission and educational objectives are supported by adequate human and fiscal resources…and that the CEA Standards for English Language Programs and institutions are being met. The Commission had determined that the IESL Program meets these requirements and commends the program for its achievements”.

With this accreditation, IESL also joins EnglishUSA—the American Association of Intensive English Programs—a group that promotes quality and advocates for English language programs.

(This article originally appeared in Tech Today.)