Center News

Kate, Graduate Assistant

During the school year, the Speaking Center serves students across the university, from the freshman brainstorming their first college speech to graduate students in the business school. However summer within the center marks a shift. The main crowd of students empties for vacation and our international population begins to arrive. They seek not just to work on speeches but rather to tackle language. English Language Learners need a place to practice conversation and we open our doors. In doing so, we open ourselves not just to talk, but to listen to students from Japan, China, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, and more. For me, this listening is where the best Speaking Center moments occur. Through their stories I received a small sense of their geography and how it shaped them. Whether I was working with Safa a future graduate student in Nano science, or Anwar who sought to earn a computer science degree, I hear about how their home shaped their desires for a better future. They came with specific goals, and we got to help them meet those goals. Nothing is more satisfying then empowering that.