Posts tagged students
Flagler College faculty-led trip to Costa Rica
Jun 5th
This summer, the Flagler College Latin American 
Studies department offered a faculty-led trip to Costa Rica for students looking for a deeper immersion experience in their major.
Studies department offered a faculty-led trip to Costa Rica for students looking for a deeper immersion experience in their major.
The following is an update on the program from Flagler student Adam Krell who is currently on location with fellow classmates Ana Chambers, Diane Cassidy, Matt Garber, Elijah Hayes, Adrienne Gonzalez, and Stephanie Sweeting.
The program is led by Assistant Professor Agnieszka Johnson.
It is not every day you get on a plane to travel to a different country for five weeks. Upon arriving in the beautiful country of Costa Rica, we were greeted by our host families at the airport, who speak no English. From that point on, it has been non-stop Spanish speaking for all of us. It is truly a rewarding experience watching not only myself, but also my friends grow in the language and culture.
Intercultura School of Languages here in Costa Rica strives to provide full Spanish immersion for students so we can fully develop the skills and techniques required for learning a second language. From the intensive Spanish courses and the homestay experience with our Tico (Costa Rican) family, we are building the confidence needed to speak in Spanish.
Each day we wake up early with the sun and eat breakfast with our host families. We converse about what we have planned and make our way to the school. Spanish class starts at 8:30 a.m. sharp each morning and lasts until 12:30 p.m. with two fifteen minute breaks. After taking an hour to walk around and eat lunch, we either have a Costa Rican cooking class or dance class followed by another class taught by our faculty leader, Professor Aggie Johnson. During the cooking classes, we have learned how to cook several local dishes, like Patacones (smashed plantains that are fried, like chips) with guacamole and beans, biscochos (a Costa Rican corn cookie), and empanadas, all while learning our way around the kitchen speaking Spanish. During our Latin dance class, we learn one of three styles of dance: merengue, salsa or bachata. As we move our hips to the beat, we have fun dancing with each other and a variety of other students who also are attending Intercultura.
Our other class, with Professor Johnson, is a Spanish literature course that will eventually end with each of us writing and reading our own short stories. This class is more challenging, as we come to class and discuss a short story completely in Spanish each day. After class, we head home to eat dinner with our host families and talk about our days. It’s non-stop Spanish speaking until we go to bed.
As we are ending our third week here in Heredia, a suburb of the country’s capital of San José, we have experienced many different adventures. From seeing an active volcano, Póas, 
visiting a waterfall garden, taking a tour of the coffee plantation Doka (a local company near Heredia), to taking weekend trips to San José, we are not missing out on anything that Costa Rica has to offer.
In the next two weeks we are going white-water rafting on Mount Chirripó, the highest peak in Costa Rica, and making our way to Playa Sámara for a week. There, we will spend the week with another homestay family and attend classes right on the beach. When the week ends, we will make our way back to Heredia for one night and fly back to the United States on June 11.
As the Ticos say here in Costa Rica, ¡Pura Vida! (which translates to “pure life”)
Source: Flagler College
“Damsels in Distress” Causes the Audience to Be in Pain
May 12th
“Audience in Pain”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
Damsels in Distress is the fourth movie written and directed by Whit Stillman, all of them have received favorable reviews, but I thought this was the worst movie I have seen in a very long time.
The story takes place at a school called Seven Oaks University, and it begins during new-student orientation at the start of the school year when three girls approach a new girl attending the school and one of them says to her, “We’d like to help you.”
The three girls are Violet, Heather, and Rose, and the new girl is Lily, who is a sophomore and is transferring into the university.
The leader of the group is Violet, and she does most of the talking, which takes place when they are walking, which takes place when they are dancing, and which even takes place when the girls get into bed at night, where they all sleep in the same room.
Violet, Heather, and Rose volunteer at the Suicide Prevention Center, where they help some students to get over their depression with tap dancing.
Incidentally, when Violet herself gets depressed later in the story over a boy she thinks she is in love with, she doesn’t like to use the word “depressed.” She prefers to say that she “is in a tailspin.”
The university has social fraternities on campus, but they make a point of saying that they aren’t Greek fraternities, as there are on most college campuses. These are Roman-letter fraternities like DU, where the girls all go to a party and make fun of the members of the fraternity, whom they call morons and think of their attending as “youth outreach.”
There is no dramatic arc in this movie, just a dramatic plateau. No, make that a valley with no drama at all, because it never reaches the level of a plateau.
I wondered if all the people making this movie were as bored making it as I was watching it. I kept thinking, “Why don’t they just stop talking and do something?”
Violet’s ambition is to start a new dance craze, and the movie ends with a big musical dance number. No, two of them, but by then it is still too late.
Damsels in Distress is so bad that if I never see it again, it will be too soon.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
Flagler College Honors Four Alumni at Awards Dinner
May 9th
Flagler College honored four alumni with special awards at the annual Alumni Awards Dinner earlier this month.
Amy Thompson, a 2006 graduate and merchandising expert with Walmart, was honored with the Young Alumni Achievement Award, which is presented to alumni who are 32 years of age or younger and have demonstrated outstanding accomplishments since graduating. The award recognizes contributions to society, to a profession or to Flagler College.
During her time with Walmart, Thompson has stayed connected to Flagler College’s Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE), serving on the Walmart SIFE Advisory Council and serving on the Business advisory boards of Flagler, John Brown University and Northwest Arkansas Community College. She has also helped to facilitate a relationship between Walmart and Flagler College, including a senior leadership recruiting trip, internships for five students and full time positions for four students.
Pete Peaver, the Dean of Students at Bartram Trail High School in St. Johns County, was awarded the Flagler Service Award, which is presented to alumni who have rendered a high degree of service to Flagler College for more than 10 years.
Peaver, a 1981 graduate, has helped organize or served as the coordinator of the Flagler College Alumni Golf Tournament since the inception and has been instrumental in helping with an increased growth in alumni participation. He played four years of varsity baseball at Flagler and was inducted into the Flagler College Sports Hall of Fame for Baseball in 2007. He was recently named the Florida High School Golf Coach of the Year.
Dr. Beverly Carmichael, Assistant Chancellor for University Advancement at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, was honored with the Professional Achievement Award presented to alumni who have demonstrated significant accomplishments in their fields and have achieved recognition in their field.
A 1972 graduate, Carmichael’s professional background includes serving as Director of Development for Flagler for eight years, as well as 10 years in Washington, D.C. where she served as associate executive director of The American Association for Adult and Continuing Education and director of development for the American Association for Community and Junior Colleges.
Marc Williar, Vice President for Enrollment Management at Flagler College, was given the Pride of Flagler Award, which is given to alumni who have been Flagler College graduates for a minimum of 10 years and have achieved recognition in their field. In addition, these individuals must have rendered service to Flagler College or to their local communities. This is the highest award presented by the college.
Williar, a 1984 graduate, has been with the college since 1988 serving as associate director and director of admissions before taking his current position. During his 17 years as director, Flagler College enrollment grew nearly 100 percent from under 1,300 to more than 2,500. Since taking over as Vice President for Enrollment Management, Williar significantly increased out-of-state enrollment of new first-year students as well as minority student enrollment.
The Alumni Awards were initiated in 1999 to honor those who have made significant contributions to their fields, the college or their communities. Every spring, the awards are presented to deserving alumni at the Alumni Weekend banquet.
