I am very happy to report that our CLAC (Cultures and Languages across the Curriculum) conference was a great success. Over two days, we hosted 90 conference presenters and participants from all over the United States, China and Columbia (both remotely) including 24 Denison colleagues from across the disciplines and support offices (OCS, ISS). Represented were public and private liberal arts colleges, R1 institutions, state universities, regional campuses of Ohio U and OSU, a high school, community colleges, the Air Command and Staff College, SIT Study Abroad (a program of World Learning), a Columbus Global Business Law Company (Kegler, Brown, Hill & Ritter), and the Modern Language Association (Rosemary Feal) by professors, lecturers, graduate and undergraduate students, teaching assistants, K-12 teachers, campus deans, program directors and coordinators, international specialists, our college president and the executive director of the largest association for modern languages.
The conference program featured 34 presenters, an opening session, 9 panels, and 2 keynote speakers and attracted 56 additional conference participants. Nearly all participants came to Adam Weinberg’s talk, which generated a very lively and engaged discussion among CLACers. Rosemary Feal’s keynote was equally inspiring and stimulating resulting in a spike of MLA membership enrollments that day. :)) You can view Dr. Weinberg’s and Rosemary Feal’s talks on ITunes-U. (Thank you, Joseph Leija!)
The best part about the conference, however, is that it generated much interest among our Denison colleagues. Our participating faculty members came up with great ideas for CLAC components for their own courses and in collaboration with other colleagues. I will be organizing a get-together for all interested faculty and staff members to further discuss and exchange ideas. Please – if you were not able to attend the conference but would have liked to or are interested in internationalizing your courses – join in! I know of several colleagues at DU, such as for example Eric Liebl and Katy Crossley-Frolick, who do wonderful CLAC-friendly work with their students already. Do share your experiences with us! The announcement for this gathering will follow shortly.
It takes the work of a lot of dedicated people to make such an event happen. The success of this conference depended much on our community-spirited and selfless colleagues from just about every office on and off our campus. I would like to express a heartfelt Danke schön! to Simon Gray (GLCA), the CLAC consortium leadership, June Di Marzo and Rosemary Feal from the MLA, President Weinberg, Trish Ruess, the Provost’s Office, Kim Coplin, Susan Garcia, and Susan Kosling, Chris Faur, Yadi Collins, the Alumni Relations Office, Steve Crawford, Jeanne Matson, Cheryl Johnson, Leslie Smith, Dave Selby, Rich Elkins, Jeremy Blake, Kathy Arnholt, Cathy Untied, Jeanie McNamara, Jim Ables, William Sperry, Kris Thompson, Randi Carroll, Ginny Sharkey, Jamie Hale, our talented photographer Tim Black, Jason Bowles, Brian Roberson, Laurie MacKenzie-Crane, Sue Bishop, Perry Robinson, Michael Showman, Melissa Loomis, Missy Hannan, Joseph Leija, my dear friend and conference volunteer professor of French emeritus Arnie Joseph, Denison students Bobby Schell, Kaleigh Poe, and Ryan Smith, Andy Carlson and the Bluegrass Ensemble – and most of all Vicki Sussman and my great colleague in Modern Languages and conference planning team member Hanada Al-Masri.
Conference photos can be found here (password protected):
https://gabrieledillmann.wordpress.com/2015/05/07/clac-2015-conference-pictures/
Conference evaluation and feedback can be found here:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/M277BKP
Conference presentation materials will be available soon.
GABRIELE DILLMANN 