7 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
(01/23/14 4:47am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>A month-long study abroad opportunity in the Dominican Republic was designed specifically for students who may not have time to participate in a semester- or year-long trip.The program will run from May 11 to June 11. “With this program, students can still have the rest of their summer for an internship or for the second session of summer school at IU,” said Erik Willis, a professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese.Willis and Luciana Namorato, a professor in the same department, will teach the two classes — six credits altogether — that make up the travel course. To be eligible for the trip, an IU student must be a Spanish major or minor who has taken S280 and received a B or better. The application also requires two letters of recommendation and a statement from the student. “The program was developed so that it was taught by IU faculty so credits can transfer without any problem,” Willis said.Many students who went on last year’s trip said their Spanish skills improved as a result. Dominican Spanish is its own of Spanish, Willis said. “It would be like an English speaker listening to an English cockney accent or going to the French quarter in Louisiana,” Willis said.Willis said students had some trouble with the language barrier at first, but overall they were able to communicate with the locals.“We were required to get our own taxis and had class projects that asked us to interview the people of the Dominican,” senior Pearl Scott said in an email.Junior Ashley Detzner said she gained confidence in her Spanish after the trip.“Before this trip, I always felt uncomfortable speaking in front of people who were good enough at Spanish to hear every mistake I made,” Detzner said in an email. “But being places smack dab in the middle of a bunch of Dominicans, I learned really quickly that the only way to get better was to just practice.”Classes are four days a week, and about two out of four days are workshops, exhibitions or field trips, Willis said. There is also an excursion every weekend. “We got to climb waterfalls, see Captain Kidd’s shipwreck while we were snorkeling and swim in an underground cave,” junior Ariel Magallon said in an email. “We also visited numerous beaches, kayaked through mangroves and got to eat some amazing food.”There is a service learning component that Willis said he believes was one of the most meaningful aspects of the trip.“Playing with children in an after-school program designed to keep them from dropping out to pick from the city dump with their parents is not an experience many people are privileged enough to have,” Detzner said. “It was certainly eye-opening.”Senior Tyler Cotman said he gained the most from the relationships he made.“The most meaningful part of the program for me was the relationships I made with my host family and the other students,” Cotman said in an email.Magallon also said the people she met was the most rewarding part of the trip.“I loved the excursions we took each weekend and all of the places we got to see, but what I will always hold closest in my heart are the conversations that I had and the time that I spent with my host family, neighbors and friends,” Magallon said. “It made it very hard to leave once the four weeks came to an end.”
(01/23/14 4:41am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Panelists discussed Latino identity, history and community relating to civil rights during “Latino Involvement in The Civil Rights Movement: Then and Now” at La Casa Latino Cultural Center Wednesday night. Facilitated by Adrian Lopez, the panel included John Nieto-Phillips, director of the Latino Studies department at IU; Melissa Britton, associate director of the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies; and senior Holly Juarez.Carlos Bakota, who taught in IU’s history department and was involved with La Casa when it first opened in the 1970s, also participated in the panel.A slideshow of important dates in Latino history was shown, including events like the Zoot Suit riots of 1943, Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers Union in the 1960s and the Immigration Reform Act in the 1980s.Panelists discussed what reality was like for Latinos in history, compared to what students read in textbooks today.“How come our family history is not part of history textbooks?” Nieto-Phillips said. “We’re often left out. We need to think of Latino history as an integral part of US history.”Bakota acknowledged the civil rights movement was not just one movement, but a whole host of movements.“The civil rights movement gave us the opportunity to open up dialogue,” Bakota said.Britton talked about her work with the city of Bloomington as the Latino outreach coordinator.“There has been an 80 percent growth since 2000 in the Latino community,” Britton said. “The main issues I saw in low-income Latino families were access to healthcare and the education system for children. And it was caused by the language barrier.”Britton said her role in local government was sometimes a challenge. “What was needed in the community was not often what I was told to do,” Britton said.However, she praised the city for its action with immigration reform.“One thing I was proud of was that the Bloomington city council passed resolutions in opposition to legislation in Arizona about immigration without any need to,” Britton said.Juarez said the best Latino activism she has seen on campus is through Dream Corps International.“It works for better education for Latinos,” Juarez said.After the panelists answered their questions, the discussion transitioned to how students can make a difference in the Latino community. Sophomore Juan Jose Jaramillo said he attended the program to understand the state of affairs regarding Latinos at IU and see how people can help. When the discussion opened to the students, he discussed how he was confused about his identity as an Ecuadorian. “We need to build a culture of support at IU,” Jaramillo said. “One way we can do that is by having different organizations talk to each other.”
(01/21/14 5:00am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>IU will serve as a “critical partner” to two new supercomputing systems, according to the Office of the Vice President for Information Technology. The National Science Foundation funded the two systems, called Wrangler and Comet.Wrangler is a “critical part of the NSF’s response to big data research needs,” said the OVPIT, which consists of Chief Information Officer and Vice President for Information Technology Bradley Wheeler and Craig Stewart, associate dean of Research Technologies and executive director of the Pervasive Technology Institute. “It’s a national data storehouse and exchange for open science research in the US,” Stewart said in an email. “Wrangler will create an unprecedented resource for data storage, manipulation and analysis accessible from anywhere in the U.S.”Wrangler is funded by a $6 million NSF grant and is scheduled for production in January 2015, according to a press release. IU will provide data access reliability and security for Wrangler by replicating its 10-petabyte disk storage system in the IU Data Center. “IU will host a 10-petabyte disk storage system as part of the overall 21 petabytes of storage that are part of the Wrangler system,” Stewart said. “To put this amount of storage in context, 10 petabytes on DVDs would make a stack more than a mile and a half high.” The NSF also awarded $12 million to the San Diego Supercomputer Center at the University of California to deploy Comet, the world’s first virtualized high performance computing cluster. Comet will benefit researchers who need quick turnaround on medium-sized computing jobs. Comet is “a large Dell cluster environment that will support major national computing projects”, Dr. Geoffrey Fox, director of the Digital Science Center at IU, said.According to Wheeler and Stewart, IU is the only institution that works with both Wrangler and Comet. “This is a very strong endorsement of the capabilities of the School of Informatics and Computing, University Information Technology Services and Pervasive Technology Institute,” Stewart said. “The combination of research by the School of Informatics and Computing researchers with UITS’s ability to engineer, deploy and support innovative IT solutions has brought tens of millions of dollars in federal research funding to IU.”He said IU’s involvement in these projects will create at least two job openings.“With Wrangler comes funding that will add at least one new full time job and a graduate assistant position at IU,” Stewart said. “PTI now has more than 50 jobs funded by federal grants, which add to the Indiana economy and to the knowledge workforce of the state.”The projects will present a number of opportunities for student involvement as well, he said.“IU will also play a critical role in supporting citizen science – projects where anyone who is interested in science can participate,” Stewart said. “The research projects benefit from the participation of citizen scientists and such projects are also a great way to interest young people in science and technology.”
(01/17/14 4:51am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The recovery point for campus buses on the D route was changed effective Jan. 12 from Forest to Willkie.According to Operations Manager of IU Campus Bus Service Perry Maull, the recovery points on the bus routes are needed to stay on schedule and to allow the driver to get off the bus to use the restroom or take a break. Forest was not the “ideal location” for a recovery point, Maull said. “Forest is also a bus stop for Bloomington Transit buses, so having a campus bus parked at the stop was interfering with Bloomington Transit,” Maull said. “Also, there are bicycle lanes on Third Street where the bus stop is located. We don’t want to park a bus in a bicycle lane.”Maull said the recovery point was originally on Rose Avenue, across the street from the Willkie center building. During the past few years the area was not available because of the construction of Rose Avenue Residence Center, so it was moved to Forest. Students who regularly take the D route have differing views on the change. “Sometimes there is another D bus available to take people, but sometimes we have to just sit and wait,” freshman Logan Sanchez said. “It’s frustrating.”Freshman Anna Cooper said she doesn’t mind the new recovery point. “I don’t think it’s that big of a deal,” Cooper said. “You can just walk across the street to get on another bus.”Maull said he invites feedback from students about their opinion of the change. Follow reporter Sara Boyle on Twitter @BOYLEr_alert.
(01/14/14 4:41am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The Vera Bradley Foundation for Breast Cancer has pledged $15 million to support breast cancer research at the Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Cancer Center.The pledge, announced last Thursday, adds to the $20 million already donated and will bring the total amount donated by Vera Bradley to $35 million. “This is the single largest philanthropic gift ever given to the program,” Catherine Hill, executive director of the Vera Bradley Foundation for Breast Cancer, said. “As a result, they built out a team that is now recognized by the National Cancer Institute as one of the strongest breast cancer research programs in the country.”The gift will help fund the Vera Bradley Foundation for Breast Cancer Research Laboratories, a renowned research program.Co-leader of the Breast Cancer Program, Harikrishna Nakshatri, said the organization is full of notable people in the world of medicine.“Several of our members serve in various national and international committees, including National Institutes of Health and Susan G. Komen, and are editors of scientific journals,” Nakshatri said. The Vera Bradley Foundation for Breast Cancer Research Laboratories will use the funds to search for gene alterations that drive specific subtypes of breast cancer, according to the press release. They will also look for effective drugs to work toward the goal of improving cure rates and quality of life. “The breast cancer program focuses on understanding the biology of breast cancer and translating that understanding into improvements in prevention, screening and treatment,” said Dr. Kathy Miller, associate professor and co-leader of the Breast Cancer Program at the Simon Center. “With the support of Vera Bradley, we have launched our precision therapeutics initiative.” Miller said the first clinical trial will use state-of-the-art genetic sequencing to identify therapy for the highest risk patients, for whom the best currently available therapy has failed. The trial will be available at sites around the country and will begin enrolling patients in the next few months.The pledge will also establish the Vera Bradley Foundation Scholars Program as one integral in training the next generation of scientists working with breast cancer.According to the press release, as a result of support from the Vera Bradley Foundation for Breast Cancer, the number of IU researchers focused on breast cancer has grown to 38, up from six in 1999.“The talent that they’ve recruited has come from our funding,” Hill said. Follow reporter Sara Boyle on Twitter @BOYLEr_alert.
(12/16/13 5:08am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Three students in the Kelley School of Business won first place in the Spanish-language division of the Business Language Case Competition at Brigham-Young University on Nov. 8. Junior Paul Gilson and seniors Nathan Lohrmann and Brianna Terrell brought home a trophy and $2,000 prize from the competition in Provo, Utah. In the competition, each team received a Harvard Business Review case in Spanish and had to make a presentation and answer questions in Spanish about the case involved. The team was selected from participants in the Undergraduate Consulting Workshop by professor and Consulting Workshop director Joel Rubin. Their Spanish coach was a lecturer in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Israel Herrera, who also prepares Kelley students for Globase, Emerging Markets Experience and Business study-abroad programs in Spanish-speaking countries.“I worked with them for one hour per week for almost two months,” Herrera said. Gilson is an economic consulting major and Spanish minor. Lohrmann is majoring in production and operations management and marketing. Terrell is a senior Wells Scholar majoring in finance and international business with minors in Spanish and Portuguese. This was the first time Gilson participated in the competition. “At first I felt slightly behind because of Nate and Brianna’s experience with cases, but as we continued to work together, we all found our respective niches within the team,” Gilson said. All three team members have experience abroad in a Spanish-speaking country where they gained their Spanish fluency. Both Terrell and Lohrmann studied abroad in Sevilla, Spain. Gilson worked as a development intern in Nicaragua and studied with the IU Honors Program in Ciudad Real, Spain.“I had very high expectations of this team,” Herrera said. “Their Spanish was almost like a native speaker’s.” Before the competition, they met every day for a week to prepare their presentation and analysis.“Their business background was so great,” Herrera said. “They were confident on all of the business information they had to deal with.” Other schools that participated included Arizona State University, Rutgers University and University of Notre Dame.“It’s a huge honor for the Kelley School of Business,” Herrera said. “They were competing against a lot of prestigious universities.” Gilson said he was surprised at first. “The moment I heard that we placed first, my face lit up, and I was almost in disbelief,” Gilson said. “But when I thought about it, I knew we had put in the work to deserve first place.”Herrera said he is not only proud of the students but also proud that they came from his department.“It shows the Spanish they’ve learned in my department has benefited them,” Herrera said. “I’m very proud of them.” Follow reporter Sara Boyle on Twitter @BOYLEr_alert.
(11/15/13 1:57am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>After Alumni Hall was renovated last summer, 53-year-old Mike Webb couldn’t help but notice all of the wood lying around afterward.So he put it to use. Webb, who works in mechanical maintenance at the Indiana Memorial Union, made a dulcimer, a fretted string instrument, out of wood torn down from Alumni Hall. The dulcimer was displayed last week at the IMU between Alumni Hall and Starbucks. “It was a fun project,” Webb said. “I worked on it for about a month and a half, just an hour or two at a time. I’ve never made anything like this before.” After Webb showed the dulcimer to his coworkers, a display was created outside Alumni Hall. “He’s really proud of it,” said Assistant Director of Facility Services Gary Chrzastowski.As well as the dulcimer, the display also contained photos of some of Webb’s other projects, including items he has made for his home.“I like tinkering,” Webb said. “All I need’s an excuse.”The only items Webb had to buy to make the dulcimer were the strings, frets and tuners. Everything else, including the wood for the case, “came out of the trash.” He estimated that the whole project cost about $50.“I’m a pack rat of sorts, I suppose,” Webb said. “I would rather build it than buy it if I had the option and the tools.”Webb first became interested in dulcimers after his wife purchased one for him as an anniversary gift a few years ago. He has since bought another one and now owns three including the one he made. A traditional dulcimer is “more of an hourglass shape” than his own, Webb said. He chose to carve dragonfly-shaped sound holes rather than the traditional circles or f-holes found on other dulcimers and string instruments. “Everybody says it looks elaborate but it’s actually pretty simple,” Webb said. “It’s probably the neatest thing I’ve ever built.”He said he enjoys playing the dulcimer and has been playing the “versatile” instrument for the last couple of years. He says it is similar to playing a fiddle.Originally from Bloomington, Webb moved to Bedford, Ind., five years ago. He drives 32 miles Friday through Tuesday to work at the IMU.He has three kids, two sons in Bloomington and a daughter in Bedford, and multiple grandchildren. Many of his creations were built for his family. “I’ve built beds and toys for the grandkids and some furniture for my house,” Webb said. “I did most of the woodwork in my house myself. Vanities, sinks, mirrors — things like that.”He’s not working on a project right now, but his next project will be building his grandsons a bunk bed, “either a fire truck or a tree house.” He said he enjoys making items that can be heirlooms for his family.“Hopefully the dulcimer is something I can pass along to my kids,” he added. “It’ll be around longer than I will.”