The University of Iowa’s community service classes, which sometimes coincide with service trips over spring break, are continuing to complete service projects despite in-person restrictions and mostly virtual interactions with community groups.

Dr. Ari Ariel, associate professor of Instruction in International Studies and History and the Associate Director of International Studies, was elected to the Board of Directors of the Association for Jewish Studies, the largest Jewish Studies organization in the world. He started his three year term in December 2020.

2021 Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration of Human Rights is Sunday, Monday, January 25th through Sunday, January 31.

Learn more about International Education week.

IS:3012 - Community-Engaged Learning will be offered for the second time in Spring 2021. This experiential learning course provides the opportunity to gain experience working with a Local/Global Nonprofit. International Studies students recommend taking Community Engaged Learning with Refugees and Immigrants in Iowa.

The International Studies program is committed to inclusive teaching, advising, and mentoring. Achieving this requires identifying and challenging the systemic inequalities which shape our lives, our university and the global contexts and issues about which we teach. We thus join the University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Faculty Senate, and other campus governance bodies in condemning efforts—including and beyond those made by Executive Order—to restrict our academic freedom by curtailing anti-racist and social justice-oriented teaching and praxis.

Learn more about Emily, a Humanities 3MT Winner

Isabelle Davis, an International Studies student at the University of Iowa, earned a 2020 David L. Boren Fellowship, and will spend next year studying Turkish in Azerbaijan as part of the new 2020 Turkish Flagship Language Initiative.

An International Studies course taught by Peter Gerlach, "Service Learning: Community Engaged Learning with Refugees and Immigrants in Iowa," turned what was going to be a panel discussion into a Coronavirus Awareness Webinar for Refugees and Immigrants in Iowa. Participants included the mayor of Iowa City, Iowa's State Refugee Coordinator, and other experts.

Congratulations to IS Students Sam Silker and Cecilla Dugger on winning prizes in the 2020 Korean Speech Contest.