If University of Iowa students ever feel like they don’t have a voice, here’s proof that they do.
After much clamoring by students, faculty, staff and community members against the impending closure of UI’s Center for Human Rights, university officials announced Wednesday a new permanent home for the center in the College of Law beginning July 1.
Name: Guilherme B. Prudente
Home country: Brazil
Currently attending: University of Iowa
Major: Computer science
Career aspirations: Game/App Developer
Graduation year: 2013
An increasing number of University of Iowa students are choosing to not only study abroad but also to work and volunteer overseas. The university is ranked 46th, among schools of its size, in the number of students graduating and joining the Peace Corps.
The UI recently increased its response to this demand by creating a position specifically geared toward students wanting to work, intern, or volunteer abroad. The position has been in place for 18 months, and officials have seen good results.
While many of us took time to relax and unwind over the holiday break, Professor Joann (Jo) Eland, PhD, RN, FAAN, was scrambling to finalize international travel plans while prepping to instruct a class that provides vital hospice and palliative care overseas.
On December 29, Dr. Eland and a group of 18 students (11 from the College of Nursing) embarked on multi-day journey that took them from Iowa City, to Chicago, to Abu Dhabi and ultimately to their final destination—a hospice in Trivandrum, India, a city located in the Southern tip of the country—where Eland taught a three-week course titled “Hospice, Pain and Palliative Care.”
University of Iowa senior women's golfer Gigi DiGrazia was intrigued by an email she received last August for a class offered over winter break called “Diagnosing Diseases.”
DiGrazia, a health and human physiology major, wants to attend medical school, so this was right up her alley. The class would be worth three credits, offered over three weeks during winter break, and students would be working hands-on with doctors and physicians in diagnosing illnesses and other medical situations.
Jesse Skinner Wilkerson was a 33-year-old farmer from Hamburg, Iowa, when he was drafted to serve in the 13th Iowa Infantry, Company C. His wife, Sarahett, was pregnant with their third child and left to run the farm in his absence.
The year was 1864, and the U.S. was embroiled in a civil war that ultimately cost three-quarters of a million lives among the Union and Confederacy ranks. Wilkerson, by his reckoning, traveled over 5,000 miles to seven states during his service. Though he survived the war, he was murdered in a barroom in 1869, only four years after the war’s end.
When Lisa Thai started her freshman year at the University of Iowa last fall, she had no intentions of joining any of the sororities on campus. It was not until a friend, UI junior Vanessa Au, approached her about starting a chapter of the Asian interest sorority Delta Phi Lambda that Thai reconsidered.
Thai, Au and five other women founded the UI colony chapter of Delta Phi Lambda on Nov. 18, 2012. Au currently serves as the chapter’s president, and Thai is the vice president of records.
Ron McMullen held a phone to his ear in May 2000. The unfolding situation seemed like a plot from a Hollywood film starring the latest actions stars, but it wasn’t.
On the other line was the voice of the spokesman for George Speight, who listened to McMullen’s demands. Speight and his followers had stormed the Fijian Parliament in May and held Prime Minster Mahendra Chaudhry and most of his Cabinet hostage for 56 days, according to Radio New Zealand.In the midst of the conflict, an American journalist who had attempted to interview Speight was taken hostage.
McMullen, now a University of Iowa visiting associate professor of political science, was set on having the journalist freed.
The study of genetics has come a long way since Gregor Mendel’s groundbreaking work with pea plants in the mid-19th century. To see just how far we’ve come and where research into genetics is taking us, join WorldCanvass host Joan Kjaer and her panel of expert guests on Friday, February 15, at 5 p.m. in the Old Capitol Senate Chamber, when the topic is "Genetics and New Technologies." The program is free and open to the public.
The Mississippi River, which holds such an important place in North America’s geography, ecology, and culture, is also helping build bridges between the United States and China.
Last summer, the Lucille A. Carver Mississippi Riverside Environmental Research Station (LACMRERS) welcomed some of China’s finest high school students, who came to learn about the Mississippi River. The students spent 18 days visiting three states as part of “Rivers as Bridges,” an international exchange program sponsored by Environment and Public Health Network for Chinese Students and Scholar
Although more than 150 years have passed since the first bullets were fired in the U.S. Civil War, Americans retain a deep interest in the conflict, its causes, the major players, and the impact the war and our complicated history have on our national identity. WorldCanvass guests will continue the conversation on January 25 at 5 p.m., in the Senate Chamber of Old Capitol Museum, when the topic is “The Rupture of Civil War.” The program is free and open to the public.
An ocean stretches between China and the United States. But between Chinese and American University of Iowa students looms just as difficult a barrier to cross — one constructed of language and culture.
The Chinese students make up the largest international student population on campus. UI President Sally Mason traveled to Asia this summer to strengthen the relationship and recruiting efforts between the UI and China. But after the students arrive on campus, making a home in the unfamiliar setting of Iowa City presents a complex set of social challenges.
While locals celebrated Human Rights Day in Iowa City, several took the opportunity to further discuss the future of the University of Iowa Center for Human Rights.
Members from various local advocacy organizations convened Monday to discuss the importance of universally defined human rights, on the 64th anniversary of the U.N. General Assembly’s ratification of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Ronald McMullen, a visiting associate professor of political science at the University of Iowa and a former U.S. ambassador to Eritrea, offers three pieces of advice to students interested in working in international politics.
“Be a good student, a good citizen, and have international experience,” he said. “Grades do matter. And a misdemeanor won’t look good to federal employers.”
What do the University of Iowa’s 1,245 Chinese students, Whirlpool appliances from Middle Amana, Johnson County’s cornfields, Kirkwood’s STEM outreach and West Liberty’s Dual Language Programs have in common?
They represent some of Iowa’s considerable assets in the world-wide competition for growth and prosperity. Thanks to advances in communication and transportation, globalization means that Iowa is more connected to and affected by world events than ever before.
