Our IEP Directors discuss recent events and new developments within some of their different programs.
Chinese IEP
We are happy to announce that the Chinese IEP has solidified a new partner university relationship! A Memorandum of Understanding with Tunghai University in Taiwan has been finalized and is currently awaiting approval from URI’s Legal Office. We are planning to send our first CIEP student to Tunghai in Taichung City in Fall 2022, leveraging a three-year collaboration sponsored by Taiwan’s Ministry of Education. CIEP students will benefit from a generous scholarship of approximately $850 a month. The Chinese IEP has collaborated with our vice provost for global initiatives as well as with faculty from the Colleges of Engineering and Business, the Chinese Language Flagship Program, and the International Diplomacy Studies Program to get this MOU on the way. CIEP Director Sigrid Berka received Global Mobility Funds for a site visit to Tunghai in Spring 2022, and is looking forward to her visit. This will also give her the opportunity to reconnect with our GIEP/CIEP & Chinese Flagship alum Zachary Smith, who is currently pursuing a master’s in renewable energy technology supported by a Fulbright scholarship at National Cheng Kung University in Tainan City.
French IEP
To celebrate the return of face-to-face classes, we organized a social event for all French IEP students this fall. The weather was beautiful, which allowed us to meet outside at the picnic tables between the TI and IEP houses. Brenden Smerbeck, a French IEP alum from the class of 2017 joined us. After starting off with a meet-and-greet activity (fully in French), we then split into two groups. With the first- and second-year students, Brendan shared both his experiences as a French IEP alum and his knowledge as current technical director for URI’s electrical and computer engineering capstone program. Meanwhile, French IEP Director, Lars Erickson talked to the students planning to study abroad next year. Halfway through the event, Brendan and Lars switched so that each group was able to benefit from Brendan’s first-hand experiences. Everyone had a lot of fun and it was great to see Brendan again.
In other news, French IEP Director Lars Erickson was awarded a Travel Mobility Grant from the Office of International Education. “It will be important for me to travel to France to strengthen ties with our partner institutions and with our corporate partners. It has been a while since travel was allowed, so the program will benefit for sure,” said Dr. Erickson.
French programs at local high schools have asked for presentations on the French IEP. Dr. Erickson went to South Kingstown High School on November 16th, where he spoke to a class of 24 students about the IEP and French at URI. Another presentation took place at Exeter-West Greenwich High School on December 3rd, with FIEP alum Sandra Deeb and FIEP student Sofia Lanzi presenting alongside Dr. Erickson. Other visits are being planned at Chariho Regional High School and Bishop Hendricken.
German IEP
We are very happy to have a cohort of 17 German IEP students studying at TU Braunschweig and TU Darmstadt right now. They enjoyed their September intensive courses and extracurricular excursions, including visits to the Harz mountains and Berlin, kayaking on the Oker River in Braunschweig, and exploring both the Art Nouveau Mathildenhöhe close to Darmstadt and Frankenstein’s castle in the Odenwald. The group is looking forward to their six-month internships at BASF, Bosch, BMW M, Daimler, IAV, MTU, Physikinstrumente, Porsche, Siemens Health, Siemens, Vosseler, VW and ZF.
A large group of 30 GIEPers are currently preparing to go to Germany in 2022-23. Several of them took advantage of the opportunity to participate in a bilingual language tandem partnership with our German exchange students, 14 (!) of whom are currently living in the IEP LLC. Meeting up with these TU Braunschweig and TU Darmstadt students at least once a week, the pairs spend half their time in German, half in English and do activities together. The tandem partnership was organized by our current DAAD Visiting Professor Dr. Karina Lammert with assistance from IEP Coordinator Melissa Schenck, and has 19 active participants.
Congratulations are in order for Stefan Tauchnitz, a ELE dual master candidate from TU Darmstadt who is living in the house as well as for TUBS dual master candidates Niklas Thiele (ISE) and Charlotte Reich (OCE) – all successfully defended their URI thesis this Fall.
Dr. Niko Tracksdorf is happy to announce that, after a pause caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the German STEM Immersion School in Berlin he had launched in Summer 2019 will be running again next year. The dates will be May 20th to July 2nd, 2022, with applications having just opened up on December 1st. For more information, please go to uri.edu/berlin/.
Dr. Tracksdorf and Dr. Natasha Kelly, our current Visiting Max Kade Distinguished Scholar from Berlin, co-organized a highly successful symposium on Friday, November 18th. The event, titled “Black Political Representation in Germany – What does the future of Black people look like in Germany?”, was sponsored by the German Consulate in Boston and by event funds from the URI College of Arts and Sciences. It featured a highly engaging discussion with Dr. Kelly and several guest speakers:
– Dr. Karamba Diaby, Member of the Bundestag (SPD);
– Dr. Pierette Herzberger-Fofana, Member of the European Parliament (Grüne);
– Dr. Sylvie Nantcha, Advisor to the former Federal Government (CDU)
– Raphael Moussa Hillebrand (Die Urbane. Eine HipHop Partei);
– Mirrianne Mahn, City Councilor, Frankfurt am Main
Sponsored by the German Consulate in Boston, the event was able to provide simultaneous translation to its 322 participants, who joined virtually from the Aland Islands, Albania, Austria, Brazil, Costa Rica, Germany, Rwanda, South Africa, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Vietnam, and from 26 US states, including 70 faculty and students from URI.
Italian IEP
Recently a dual master’s in mechanical engineering agreement was signed between URI and University of Naples Parthenope that will allow our students to gain two master’s degrees while completing or following completion of their IEP program. To reinforce our collaboration with Parthenope, Dr. Michelangelo La Luna, Director of the Italian IEP, will travel to Naples with Chair and Professor of Mechanical and Industrial Systems Engineering, Carl Rousseau and MCE/ISE graduate director Professor David Chelidze. Dr. La Luna will also visit some new companies to recruit internship hosts, as well as the IEP’s other partner university in Italy, the University of Calabria.
We are also happy to announce a new scholarship opportunity for Italian IEP students. The Teodoro Raffaele Diaco Scholarship is committed to transforming and shaping the workforce of tomorrow and will provide financial assistance to both underrepresented minority student populations and students of Italian heritage in the Italian IEP. These grants are an additional help to Italian IEP students who can also apply for more consistent scholarships for the year that they will spend in Italy. The deadline for applications is 5:00 pm EST on March 25th of each year. The application can be found here.
Japanese IEP
Because of the pandemic and the strict entry policy put on by the Japanese government, we were not able to send any students to Japan this year. Despite this, Japanese IEP 5th year Kyle Keefe is currently interning with one of IEP’s German industry partners, Physik Instrumente, in California. Initially hired to begin conversations between this US branch of PI and its overseas branches/subsidiaries in Japan, Kyle is now using his Japanese skills to help facilitate joint projects.
For the next academic year 7 IEP students and 1 International Computer Science student are preparing to go to Japan, which is the largest group JIEP has ever had! To continue honing their linguistic skills in preparation for the year abroad, these students and their peers have been involved in a variety of events through the Japanese section this fall, including but not limited to: virtual conversations hours with Japanese-speaking international students, a Japanese book club, Japanese movie nights, conversing over a Japanese Discord channel, mentoring their younger peers and even participating in a scavenger hunt in Japanese.
Spanish IEP
The Spanish IEP is excited to finally be able to slowly restart our student exchanges. Two IEP students are currently taking courses at our partner universities in San Sebastian and Zaragoza in Spain. We are also fortunate to have been able to welcome four students from our partner universities to Kingston. A graduate student from Tecnun (San Sebastian, Spain) will join us early in the new year to complete a research project during the Spring and Summer 2022 terms. We have already started our work to help next year’s SIEP cohort (15 students) with their preparations for the year abroad.
We are thrilled to announce that we finalized a dual master’s degree program in ocean engineering between URI and the University of Cantabria (UNICAN) in Santander, Spain. We are shifting our full attention to a second dual master´s degree agreement with UNICAN in civil engineering. These agreements will allow our students to complete a two-year program and receive two degrees upon graduation: one from URI and one from UNICAN. These agreements represent not only a significant increase in the opportunities that our graduate students have to study and conduct research abroad, but will also diversify and enhance their graduate curricular and research experiences.
In an effort to support SIEP student success, the Spanish section is currently considering increasing the number of higher level Spanish courses taught during the summer months (including online courses). The goal is to provide students facing difficult scheduling conflicts during the regular academic year with more options so that they may remain on track for timely completion of their degree requirements without incurring exorbitant financial expenses.
Finally, we are delighted to report that Iñaki Pérez-Ibáñez, director of the Spanish IEP, has received a Travel Mobility Grant from the office of International Education and will be conducting research in Spain during the winter break.