Chair's Report 2025
Highlights from the Council on Language Instruction
The CLI had a very rewarding year. We started off the academic year with a fascinating fall orientation workshop by Tom Garza, University of Texas at Austin, who spoke about “Say my Name: Addressing Gen Z Learner Identities through Differentiated Instruction in World Languages!” The breakfast meeting in December, organized by co-chairs Domenic DeSocio and Wen-pin Hsieh and the meetings and orientation (MOC) committee, turned into a breakfast and lunch meeting, and we heard from Fadia Antabli, who spoke about the integration of the works of poet Hahya Ashour into her courses, and from Mark Presnell, Executive Director of the Center of Career Advancement, who shared insights about the important role of languages as students carve out their career paths.
During the Winter 2025 breakfast meeting, faculty members Noriko Taira Yasohama, Eun Hee Kim, and David Boyk presented a curricular film series in the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, a collaboration with the Block Cinema. Oya Topcuoglu spoke about integrating popular TV shows into her first year Turkish course, and Rob Ryder shared information about his work on finding internships abroad for our students. For the end of winter quarter, the outreach committee organized a student-created poster exhibit, honoring Africans and people of African descent and their contributions across languages. This was a collaboration between Jacob Brown and Rana Raddawa of the CLI with Esmeralda Kale of the Herskovitz library and Rebecca Shereikis of the Study of Islamic Thought in Africa. Thank you to the many professors and students who participated in this project.
The outreach committee also organized the Festival of Languages and Cultures in early spring, which was generously sponsored by the Language Resource Center. Special thanks to Jacob Brown, Yangtian Luo, Rana Raddawi, and Peter Mwangi and all the professors and students who participated in the related projects. New this year was a scavenger hunt, and the language tables at the Rock were inspiring as always, as was the Variety Show featuring students from different language programs and departments. The language faculty development committee, led by Massimiliano Delfino and Yan Zhao also organized a number of helpful workshops, including one workshop that opened up discussions about AI topics that were brought up as part of the immersion week, organized by the LRC. They also offered two workshops on the topic of publication, one featuring Ana Thome-Williams, and one featuring Domenic DeSocio, Hashem Hakeem, and Eun Hee Kim.
The annual Chicago Language Symposium on the topic of AI, chaired on the NU end by Eun Hee Kim and Katia Viot-Southard, took place at DePaul University this year and was well attended by faculty from all participating universities and beyond.
The study abroad committee was very active as well, as co-chairs Rob Ryder and Margaret Dempster brought a number of important topics to the attention of the administration.
The end of year celebration took place on June 4th at 4 pm at the Ver Steeg Lounge, where this year’s winner of the CLI Award Heather Colburn was honored and last year’s winner Hanna Seltzer gave a presentation titled "Don't Stop Believing - (Promoting) Dialogue and Understanding as Integral to Language Curricula”. Once more, this event provided a beautiful occasion to share milestones, promotions, and retirement information and celebrate our community.
Looking ahead to next year, the fall orientation is scheduled for Friday, September 12th, and will be held by Dr. Liu, Carnegie Mellon University, on Gamification in the Language Curriculum.