Social Science Education Consortium Annual Meeting
Social Science Education Consortium held two session of its Annual Meeting in Debrecen this year. The main organizer of the event, Prof. Murry R. Nelson, former Fulbright grantee and Orszagh Laszlo Chair spent one year teaching at the University of Debrecen and attending AC events in 2007/08. The two institutions hoste...d the Meeting's sessions in Debrecen on June 21-22.
Every participant, who are all distinguished university professors and social science experts, generously donated one or two books to the American Corner's Library. The items can all be borrowed from June 24.
We hope we can welcome back the professors sometime soon!
EducationUSA Outreach in Sarospatak
AC Debrecen did an EducationUSA outreach event in Sarospatak (Northeast Hungary) on May 10-11.
Barbara Coons, Fulbright grantee who has been a constant help in the Corner and Dora Barta, AC director and educational adviser ran 3 programs for the students of Arpad Vezer High School. Monday evening 26 students attended a movie screening and participated in the 30-minute discussion afterwards. Tuesday morning a lively presentation was offered about American Teenager Life. During three classes roughly 120 students got acquainted with American high school and college life. Apart from Barbara’s funny personal anecdotes, students learnt useful details about how to apply to college and where to look for more information. A Q&A session closed the classes: for US-related questions students got pencils and rulers. Tuesday afternoon an open English Conversation Hour took place at the castle. 15 student aged 15-18 showed up and asked about American cities, food, scholarships, English language learning tips, etc. This time there was no need for encouraging prizes; enthusiastic students made us stay for an additional half hour.
Beside the interactive programs with students, AC Debrecen donated 40 books, about 80 periodicals and dozens of EducationUSA informational CD's to the school thus contributing to the growth of the library’s very small collection of English language materials. The principal, teachers and students are always very welcoming to AC visits and we are happy that we were able to stir up school life a little bit again.
Ambassador Kounalakis and her family visited the AC on April 13, 2010. She talked to more than 30 students from three local high schools encouraging them to consider continuing their education at a US institution. She also called their attention to the US Embassy's Tolerance Video Competition with an extended application deadline (May 3, 2010).
Ambassador Kounalakis gave a talk at the University of Debrecen and visited the National Instruments plant as well.
Hungarian-American Relations
Presentation series and virtual university in Debrecen
The American Corner in Debrecen in cooperation with the Fulbright Alumni Debrecen Chapter and the American Alumni Society launched a series on Hungarian-American relations to educate Hungarians about the history of and the interactions between the two nations.
The series was opened on February 9, 2010 by Dan Travis, consul (U.S. Embassy, Budapest). In his opening speech he emphasized the parallels between our cultures and the importance of the complex and multi-faceted relations between the U.S. and Hungary.
The first speaker was Dr. Csaba Lévai, historian and professor from the University of Debrecen, whose topic, “From Captain John Smith to Bölöni Farkas Sándor: Chapters from the History of Hungarian-American Relations before 1848” attracted an audience of 28 students, professors and senior citizens.
The first presentation is already available online, it is open and accessible for anyone for free. Under the account name of AmericanCornerDEB we are going to upload all the talks in the series to YouTube. You may subscribe to get updates about the new ones.
As Secretary Clinton pointed it out in her Internet Freedom Speech in January 2010, the internet has “opened up new forums for exchanging ideas” and “there are more ways to spread more ideas to more people than at any moments in history”. We hope that with the help of the World Wide Web, we will be able to reach out to Hungarians who are, for geographical, economical, health or other reasons, unable to attend our events in person. Providing an opportunity to Hungarian-speakers to gain a deeper understanding of the historical background and the development of the two country’s relationship is our tool in working for fruitful relations in the future.
At our X-mas Tea Party 2009 the International Mug Beauty Contest (which we started in '08) grew to be an interesting event. We heard many interesting and funny stories our guests presented about their mugs and some special ones deserved an award. See the photos here.
Thanksgiving 2009
On this year's Thanksgiving dinner we had around 60 guests - who, at the same time were also hosts of the event : they brought home-made cookies, cakes, and beautiful side-dishes! What's more, our George Young made us sing again. See the photos here.
HALLOWEEN 2009
one of our busiest events!
In the last three years our pumpkin carving competition has become more and more popular! This year's Halloween event attracted at least 90 people who could show their talent in the art of pumpkin carving. What’s more, many of them showed up in scary costumes, making the atmosphere of our Halloween uncanny :)
As the result of cooperation between the American Chamber of Commerce, National Instruments Hungary and American Corner Debrecen, the young engineers and IT specialists of the future spend a summer week dedicated to one of their favorite pastimes, programming. With the help of experienced instructors, they build LEGO robots and program them to follow simple as well as complex instructions. Beside all the educational activities, the boys – who came from Kossuth Lajos Primary School and Arany János Primary School – had some time for fun too!
