This year’s theme, “The Many Faces of Elon: On Campus & Beyond,” reflects the university’s commitment to broadening students' perspectives and enhancing global awareness through local, national, and international lenses.
This week marks International Education Week (IEW), hosted by the Isabella Cannon Global Education Center (GEC) including a series of seventeen events and programming from Sept. 15 to 20. The 2024 theme, “The Many Faces of Elon: On Campus & Beyond,” reflects the university’s commitment to broadening students’ perspectives and enhancing global awareness through local, national and international lenses.
IEW, a collaborative initiative of the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of Education, aims to highlight the importance of international education. Elon University’s celebration is designed to emphasize the richness of diversity on campus, in the surrounding Alamance County community and beyond. It also fits into the comprehensive internationalization approach undertaken in the University’s new global strategic plan.
“IEW highlights how global Elon already is, by lifting up the good work that is already happening within our community,” said Nick Gozik, dean of global education. “This year’s theme reminds us that global learning is not something that happens overnight. It’s a lifelong pursuit that helps us be better prepared to engage with people who are different from us. It also recognizes that such learning can happen both close to home and further afield such as through Study USA, study abroad, or studying at Elon as an international student.”
Highlights of the week include an International Soccer Tournament, the Faces of Alamance County Storywalk and a screening of the documentary Cooked: Survival by Zip Code. Attendees can also enjoy a communal dinner and book reading with refugee families, participate in spaghetti ice cream making with the German Club, and experience traditional Italian tarantella dancing. This week’s International Coffee Hour will be held at Numen Lumen Pavilion, co-hosted by the Truitt Center for Religious and Spiritual Life and the GEC, and the week will culminate with the Mid-Autumn Festival. Additionally, the GEC will host a Study Away Fair for students interested in learning more about study abroad and Study USA.
A full list of activities can be found on the IEW website.
“We have so many departments and programs on campus who have helped with IEW and help our campus community engage globally on a daily basis,” said Cass North, a master’s of higher education student and GEC graduate apprentice, who also praised the students who volunteered on the IEW committee.
Participating units include the Center for Race, Ethnicity, and Diversity Education (CREDE), World Languages and Cultures, the Global Neighborhood, the Center for Research on Global Engagement (CRGE) and International and Global Studies (IGS).