MCLA Opens Up Campus To Visitors From Throughout The World
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NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — During the academic year, students who attend Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts experience the world as they study abroad and attend class alongside their peers who come to the college from around the world.
Summer programs in particular, including the college’s annual Leadership Academy, our DownStreet Art initiative and the Berkshire Hills Internship Program (B-HIP), attract members of the international community to MCLA.
In addition to the students, the greater community, too, benefits through an ever-increasing influx of international visitors to campus, from a student from Japan and an artist from Egypt to a violin expert from Germany and professors from England and China.
For example, MCLA is the preferred university of renowned German violin repair expert Hans J. Nebel to offer his Violin Repair Workshop. Each summer, students come to campus from throughout the world to learn from him at workshops offered through the College’s Continuing Education Program.
And, starting July 7, visiting scholar Dr. Yu Wang, a professor from China’s Shanghai International Business and Economics University (SIBEU), will teach a summer course in Chinese and world literature as part of an ongoing partnership between MCLA and SIBEU that furthers opportunities for cross-cultural educational experiences.
Each summer, Leadership Academy brings a wide variety of experts to campus. Dr. Sut Jhally is among the many education specialists who will speak at MCLA.
Born in Kenya, raised in England and educated in graduate studies in Canada, Jhally is one of the world’s leading scholars: he looks at the role played by advertising and popular culture in the processes of social control and identity construction. At this summer’s Leadership Academy, he will present “Tough Guise: Masculinity and the Cultures of Violence.”
His lecture, to be held on Tuesday, July 22, 8-10 p.m. in Murdock Hall room 281, is free and open to the public.
Just this past spring, MCLA’s international visitors included Dr. Alke Groppel-Wegener of the United Kingdom, who served as an artist-in-residence on campus through the support of the Hardman Family Foundation.
A professor of arts and creative technologies at Staffordshire University, Groppel-Wegener is back this summer for her exhibition in the PRESS Gallery, “What’s Your Mantra,” which opened with the June 26 kick-off of DownStreet Art.
Also at MCLA for DownStreet Art is Egyptian artist Alaa Awad, here not only for an exhibition of his artwork at MCLA Gallery 51 entitled “Thebes,” but also to paint his expansive mural on Center Street in North Adams, “Justice.” Throughout the process of painting the expansive, 60-foot-long mural, Awad included community members who painted alongside him.
Joining the North Adams community this summer is Soka University student Takashi Kusaka '15, who traveled from Japan to participate in B-HIP because of its “unique program and opportunity” he couldn’t find in his own country.
Through his internship at the North Adams Office of Tourism and Community Events, “I am learning how art can change the society here,” Kusaka said.
For more information about MCLA’s summer programs and workshops, as well as presentations and events that are open to the public, go to www.mcla.edu.
