LILAC Program

IEP LILAC Students

Lively Intercultural Learning Across the Curriculum

LILAC springs from a conviction that we have not yet embraced all the opportunities for scholarly inquiry and cross-cultural encounter that presently exist in our community. Through LILAC projects, IEP classes become partners in intercultural learning with various undergraduate classes at EMU.

Each class works on a special project. IEP students become acquainted with important subjects studied in a variety of classes and are challenged to stretch their language skills in order to interact with American students; they have to use or understand college-level academic language. IEP students also contribute international perspectives to their American partners, enriching the learning experiences of all involved.

How does LILAC embrace these opportunities?

  1. By linking undergraduate classes in various disciplines with IEP classes so that personal cross-cultural encounters take place across campus.
  2. By instructors in the linked classes agreeing to collaborate on at least one project of relatively short duration that involves students in scholarly inquiry and creates incentives that motivate students to achieve academic excellence.
  3. By ensuring that both IEP and EMU undergraduate students have a chance to exercise critical thinking skills, make significant contributions to the learning process, and to work out the implications of cross-cultural perspectives for learning across the disciplines.

What do IEP students say about LILAC?

The LILAC Project is a very good and interesting project because, it helps us to learn a lot of things, like new culture as well as the broad study about species and animals. When I was in Africa , I didn’t have a chance to learn about this particular issue but through this project, I was able and willing to see how the environment is, how animals live in the forest and so on. This project helped me to be capable to stand in front of people and explain clearly about issues, and this was the good experience that I got through this LILAC Project. - Nicolau, Angola

My IEP experience was complete in the LILAC video project. The far distance has disappeared between the EMU students and us. When I met with my video partners, I felt really comfortable. Both Jered and Jamil, young American students, helped me to improve my vocabulary and showed their friendship to me. The video project, in my experience, was not only important for improving the vocabulary and making a different and creative activity; but it also was important tobreak the icebetween the English native speakers and us. I was very happy with this work and now I e-mail my new friends. This is the greatest success in this project! - Alejandra, Costa Rica

In the international film class I watched many movies of other countries. My favorite movie wasChildren of Heaven. That was my first time to watch a middle Asian (Middle Eastern) movie. And it was really interesting. I think that it is a good opportunity to watch other culturesmovies with American students because I felt American people usually dont know other cultures much. So it is good for them to know our Asian culture and other cultures. When I was in the discussion group, I always thought how different Eastern and Western people are. American people are also interested in another culture, so Im glad to share with them. - Mariko, Japan

Text Here...
✕ CLOSE
visit graphicVisit
apply graphicApply