Professor of religious-studies Raymond Mentzer will be knighted by France's Ministry of Education

University of Iowa religious studies professor Raymond Mentzer devoted the last 45 years to his area of study, but he never expected to be knighted for his work.

I’m living in a country with some of the best cuisine in the world, so why am I craving pancakes?

Each morning when I wake up in my French apartment, I feel a tiny flicker of panic. Where am I? What am I doing? How could I possibly have packed up and left my entire life behind in the States? Each morning, I make myself a cup of chocolate-pear tea (weird, I know, but I’m making my way through the entire tea section of Carrefour), look out the window at my new city, and reacquaint myself with my new life. Each morning, it gets a little easier.

Sometime during the first half of the soccer match she was attending at the Stade de France in Paris on Friday, Iowa State University junior Emily Wright heard two explosions. They made the 20-year-old Marion native jump. But she assumed they had something to do with the game — a firework or cannon or drum of some kind. It wasn’t until the second half that she and some friends started getting text messages about events unfolding across the city and just yards from where she was standing.

I had the plane ticket. The suitcase filled with Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein storybooks. I was ready to teach English in France.

The European Studies Group will continue its spring 2015 lecture series on Friday, April 24 at 12:30 p.m. in 2520B University Capitol Centre with a lecture by Jennifer Sessions entitled, “Monumental Struggles for Decolonization: Colonial Statutes, Iconoclasm, and Preservation during the Algerian War.”

Roberto Paniagua, originally from Westchester, IL, graduated from the University of Iowa in 2011 with a dual degree in economics and political science. While at the UI, Roberto studied abroad in not only Lyon, France, but on the India Winterim program as well. Currently, he is a Business and Industrial Markets Account Manager for Google in Chicago, IL. Read on for a Q-and-A with Roberto to learn about how he applies the skills he learned abroad to his life today.

Dr. Downing A. Thomas is well-known on campus as the Associate Provost and Dean of International Programs. Thomas is also a professor in the Department of French and Italian in CLAS. He received his doctorate in French Literature from New York University, and took a position with the University of Iowa soon after.