Bridges Report - Spring 2019

THE FRUMAN AND MARIAN JACOBSON
“BRIDGES” FUND FOR

STUDENTS IN GERMANIC STUDIES

REPORT – SPRING 2019

https://german.uic.edu/awards-and-grants/bridges-fund/

SUMMER 2019 RECIPIENT BIOGRAPHIES

UNDERGRADUATE

KATHARINE ANDREW

AWARD AMOUNT: $3,050

Katharine Andrew is a graduating senior from the College of Liberal Arts and
Sciences. She is double majoring in Germanic Studies and Political Science, as well as
minoring in History. Katharine was President of the German Students Association for
two years and now serves as Treasurer. She has been involved with a variety of other
clubs and organizations at UIC including: Pi Sigma Alpha, Delta Phi Alpha, Golden Key
Honor Society, National Society of Collegiate Scholars, and Phi Eta Sigma National
Honor Society. Katharine has also been a research assistant for Professor Katharine
Floros in the Political Science Department for three years. This semester she completed
her senior thesis for the Political Science Department on “How Regime Change Impacts
the Likelihood of Civil War Peace Negotiations” and presented her research at UIC’s
Impact and Research Day. Katharine currently works for the Lincolnwood Public Library
District as a Graphic Designer and Genealogy Specialist. After graduation, Katharine is
looking forward to traveling to Germany to conduct an independent research project on
Germanic genealogy, as well as work towards becoming a Certified Genealogist (CG)
and Certified Genealogical Lecturer (CGL) by the Board for Certification of
Genealogists. Next year, she hopes to be accepted into a Master’s of Library and
Information Sciences program and continue on to be employed at a library or research
institution that concentrates on history, genealogical research, or archives.

NICHOLAS BEARD

AWARD AMOUNT: $2,800

I am a dual-degree Architecture and Germanic Studies student and member of
the University of Illinois at Chicago Honors College. I am about to complete my third
year at UIC. I am originally from Howell, Michigan and chose to come to Chicago as I
believed it was a great opportunity to branch out and expand my horizons. I wish to
graduate from UIC in 2020 with academic honors for both my degree in Architecture
and Germanic Studies. Upon my graduation from UIC I intend to attend graduate school
in order to earn a Master’s degree in Architecture, which is my intended career path. I
am currently considering the possibility of attending a graduate program in Germany,
which is one of my primary motivations for continuing to improve my knowledge of the
German language. I have a great passion for architecture and am very excited about
where my future career may take me. I see architecture as a way to transform the world
around us in a meaningful, lasting, and positive way. I am also a member of the German
Honor Society Delta Phi Alpha and of the UIC German Students Association. I have
previously served as treasurer for the club and am currently the club’s president.

KELSI MOREFIELD

AWARD AMOUNT: $2,000

I am a transfer student to the University of Illinois at Chicago, and I will be a
senior starting in Fall 2019. I am a double major in Germanic Studies and
Communication. When I graduate, my ideal plan would be to earn my Master’s degree
at the University of Vienna in Communication Science, and then work for an
international newspaper or marketing agency. If this is not possible, I would like to find a
job working at a university, researching the ways people communicate and the different
tools that we use to do so, preferably cross-culturally. One thing is for sure - I want my
career to combine both of my passions: Journalism and German.

In terms of volunteer work, I am currently in training at UIC to become a
language tutor for the 2019-2020 school year so that I can help my fellow students
understand and appreciate the language that I have come to love over the years. I also
volunteer at the Diaper Bank of Northern Illinois in Huntley on Wednesdays when I am
not at school, as a way to provide diapers to parents who cannot afford to purchase
them themselves. This volunteer work is a way for me and my grandma to spend time
with each other and a good way to provide people with a necessity that is often
overlooked. Soon I hope to also begin training to become an online crisis counselor, so
that I can help people struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts get to a safe
place, just as I needed help in high school when I experienced similar feelings.

GRADUATE

KARINA DUNCKER-HOFFMANN

AWARD AMOUNT: $2,900

Karina Duncker-Hoffmann is currently in her first year as a Ph.D. student in UIC’s
Department of Germanic Studies and extremely happy to be here. She holds the
German equivalent of a B.A. in English and History (Classical and European) and an
M.A in Secondary Education from Hamburg University, Germany. After several years at
a pharmaceutical and cosmetics company in Hamburg, Germany where she was in
charge of the company’s foreign language program, she taught English and German at
high schools, companies and universities in Japan, Italy, and the USA. In Germany and
Japan, she worked with programs for cultural orientation and integration and as a crisis
counselor and volunteer trainer for Tokyo English Lifeline.

She has been teaching German and English as a Second Language at North
Central College in Naperville since 2008, where she is currently employed as a Half-
Time Assistant Professor. Karina has been an active member of the ACTFL (American
Council for the Teaching of Foreign Languages), the AATG (American Association for
Teachers of German) and TESOL (Teaching of English to Speakers of Other
Languages) since 2003 and a member of the Northern Illinois AATG Executive Board
since 2017. Since 2014, she has been part of the organizing committee and a workshop
leader for the Annual Northern Illinois College Immersion Day. Karina is passionate
about the teaching of foreign languages. She is a certified High School Teacher,
German Instructor for Refugee Integration Classes, and ACTFL OPI (Oral Proficiency

Exam) tester for German.
Karina has been happily married for 27 years; she and her husband have two

children who are currently also attending graduate school. When she is not teaching or
studying, she is either cooking for friends and family, reading or working out, or
practicing Pilates and yoga. Her areas of interest are foreign language methodology,
web tools, video and film in foreign language teaching, the Realist German novel, and
21st-century transnational literature in German. Her career goal is to never stop learning
and improving the quality of her own teaching. To this end, she will explore Berlin and
German history during her stay in Berlin, made possible through the Bridges Grant, and
further research the German Realist novel as a potential dissertation topic.

MARYANN PIEL

AWARD AMOUNT: $2,350

Maryann is currently a second-year Ph.D. student in the Germanic Studies
Department at UIC. Her research interests include early 20th-century literature, socialist
and proletarian literatures, as well as representations of celebrity in literature. She
received her B.A. in German Business Translation form Northern Illinois University in
2013 and her M.A. in Germanic Studies from UIC in 2016 with a focus on early 20th-
century “outsider” literature. Following the completion of her M.A., Maryann served as
Conference Coordinator for the 2017 Austrian Studies Association Conference and
assisted with various projects at the Goethe Institut-Chicago, including a German-STEM
teacher training seminar and translating and editing German language teaching
materials on the topic of sustainability. In addition to her research, Maryann has a keen
interest in German-language teaching. She is currently a Teaching Assistant in the
Basic Language Program at UIC, and has previously taught German language courses
at Carthage College and DANK Haus Chicago, as well as serving as an instructor for an
after-school German course at UIC College Prep High School. In addition to her work in
the classroom, Maryann has participated in the teacher training seminar “Deutsch für
Lehrer” in Berlin and the “Flipped Classroom” Teaching Assistant workshop in Chicago,
both hosted by the Goethe Institut. This summer Maryann will continue to grow as a
teacher and researcher. She has been selected to attend the “Technology Enhanced
Learning” workshop at Carnegie Mellon University and will also be a Fellow for the 2019
Notre Dame Berlin Seminar, entitled “Literaturbetrieb: Key Players in Germany’s
Literary Institutions.”

JENNIFER SENGUN

AWARD AMOUNT: $400

I am Jennifer Sengun and currently a first-year graduate student in Germanic
Studies. As of right now, my educational goal is to complete my Master´s degree and
continue on to PhD studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. My ultimate career
goal is to be a professor at a university and to teach German literature, language,
culture, and history to students who have little or no knowledge in these areas. While
studying and teaching undergraduate students this year, I am also engaged in my
community by teaching soccer to boys (2nd to 5th graders) on the weekends. Last year,
I taught girls (middle-school age) soccer and volleyball. Through my community service

and my graduate studies and experience as a Teaching Assistant, I have learned that
teaching students, regardless of age, is very satisfying and rewarding. By doing both, in
my profession and private life, I have found that I deeply enjoy this work and have
decided to make teaching my career goal.

MARIA SPEGGIORIN

AWARD AMOUNT: $2,200

Maria Speggiorin is a first-year MA student in Germanic Studies at the University
of Illinois at Chicago. She graduated with a BA degree in Foreign Languages (English-
German) at the University of Trento (Italy) with a thesis on Constructivism and
Language Learning. She received an MA degree in Language Teaching (focus on
German) at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice with a thesis on Experiential Learning
and the use of figurative art in an “Italian as a Second Language” course. During this
period she first volunteered with a Regional Civil Service project for the Social
Cooperative “Adelante” and was then was hired by this cooperative for two years. In her
work with Adelante, she developed projects for pre-teens and teens in collaboration with
schools, municipalities and other local institutions in order to promote integration and
active citizenship. In the same period, she taught Italian to European volunteers serving
in the same cooperative and gave private lessons in English and German to middle-
school students. Before starting her MA at UIC she taught a movie-making course to
middle-school students with the aim to improve Italian language skills. She enrolled in
the Germanic Studies MA program at UIC to engage more deeply with German Literary
Studies, to experience a different academic educational system and to consider the
possibility of a PhD program in Germanic Studies. In November she took part in the
Max Kade Conference on “Comic Art and/as Remembrance in German Culture and
Beyond” and in April in the annual Austrian Studies Association conference held at
Bowling Green State University (OH). In April she also helped organize the biannual
graduate student conference “Converging Narratives - Speak OUT! Shut UP!”.

Her educational aims during her MA studies at UIC are to strengthen her
knowledge in German literature, to develop teaching skills as TA in her second year and
to try to find her own way as a teacher and literary scholar either in academia or in other
educational institutions.

ANNE WOOTEN

AWARD AMOUNT: $3,300

My name is Anne Wooten and I am currently in my first semester of the
Germanic Studies M.A. program. With this degree, I am eager to gain hands-on
experience teaching German as a world language and expanding my knowledge of
German culture, literature and film studies. Fortunately, I am spending much of my time
already fulfilling this path as a Teaching Assistant in the German Basic Language
Program at UIC. Eventually, I would love to have several years of experience teaching
German, because I enjoy spreading my enthusiasm for the language and culture to
those who are interested.

THANK YOU!
DANKE!

Katharine Andrew

April 26, 2019

Dear Mr. Fruman and Mrs. Marian Jacobson,

I am writing to thank you for your generous donation and support through the UIC
Fruman and Marian Jacobson “Bridges” Fund for Students in Germanic Studies. I am
extremely grateful for being chosen for this award.

My name is Katharine Andrew, and I am a graduating senior. For the past four years at
UIC, I have double majored in Germanic Studies and Political Science, and minored in
History. I helped restart the German Students Association, “German Club,” my second
year at UIC, serving as President for two years and as Treasurer for one year. I have
also been involved in many other clubs and organizations on campus in the past four
years including Pi Sigma Alpha, Delta Phi Alpha, the Golden Key Honor Society, the
National Society of Collegiate Scholars, and the Phi Eta Sigma National Honor Society.
Most recently, I just completed by senior year honors thesis for the Political Science
department on research that I have been conducting as a research assistant for three
years with Professor Katharine Floros. My project was titled “How Regime Change
Impacts the Likelihood of Civil War Peace Negotiations.” A couple of weeks ago, I
presented my research at UIC’s Impact and Research Day.

This award will help me achieve not only personal goals, but also career goals that I
have set for myself. First, I hope that by completing an independent research project on
my own family, I will learn more about the culture and heritage that was lost to my
family. The German language and culture is important to me, as I am the first person in
my family to speak the language in three generations: when my maternal great-
grandparents moved to the United States right before World War I, they stopped
speaking German because of the war. So, when I had the chance to learn German in
high school and continue my education in Germanic Studies in college, I took it right
away, and I am very grateful that I did. I am now only person in my family to be able to
read the postcards, letters, and books that my great grandparents brought over and
received from their family in Germany after they immigrated, in the language that they
spoke. Not only has this helped me connect to my heritage and learn about my family
history, but I have also been able help my grandmother learn more about her parents
and grandparents, and read to her what they wrote in German.

This independent research project will expand on what I have already accomplished
with genealogy research in my personal family tree. As of this month, I have over twenty
thousand documented ancestors and relatives in my family tree. However, more than 80
percent of them are ancestors and relatives who were from the United States and

English-speaking countries, and seven of my eight great-grandparents were from or
direct descendants of German ancestors. Undertaking this independent research
project will help me expand my family tree in the German branches, which are now
considered “dead ends” because of the lack of available online Germanic resources in
America. The very few resources that I have been able to find online were written in
Kurrent, the old-form of Germanic script. As a result, I have taught myself how to write
and read in Kurrent, and I am eager to test my skills on authentic records.

I currently work as a Graphic Designer and Genealogy Lecturer and Specialist at the
Lincolnwood Public Library District. My goal is to attend graduate school for a Master’s
degree in Library and Information Sciences with a concentration in Archival Studies and
Records Management. This award will help me learn new skills and information that will
be extremely relevant to my career, as it would help me become acquainted with
European and German archives and records systems that are not available on online
databases. Thanks to this award, I will be able to travel to Germany and do genealogy
research in archives and libraries that have records that are not available to the public in
the United States. I will also be able to get documents I need for my application to
become a Certified Genealogy (CG) and a Certified Genealogical Lecturer (CGL) by the
Board for Certification of Genealogists.

Again, thank you very much for your generous donation and award. I’m extremely
grateful for this scholarship and its alleviation of the financial constraints that had
previously been preventing me from travelling to Germany to undertake a project like
this. I am certain that the skills and knowledge I learn from this project will be used for
the rest of my career, if not life.

Thank you and sincerely,
Katharine Andrew

Nicholas Beard

Dear Marian and Fruman Jacobson,

Let me begin by thanking you for both sponsoring the Bridges Award and for
putting me in contact with Manuel Schachtner, with whom I will be interning with this
summer. I am a dual-degree architecture and Germanic studies student and member of
the University of Illinois at Chicago Honors College. I am about to complete my third
year at UIC and wish to graduate in 2020 with academic honors. Upon my graduation
from UIC I intend to attend graduate school in order to earn a Master’s degree in
architecture, which is my intended career path. I am currently considering the possibility
of attending a graduate program in Germany, which is one of my primary motivations for
continuing to improve my knowledge of the German language. I have great passion for
architecture and am very excited about where my future career may take me. I see
architecture as a way to transform the world around us in a meaningful, lasting, and
positive way. I am also a member of the German Honor Society Delta Phi Alpha and a
member of the UIC German Students Association. I have previously served as
Treasurer for the club and am currently the club’s President.

Receiving the Bridges Award and the internship with Mr. Schachtner is an
incredible opportunity and will be a very important step towards achieving several of my
future goals. I wish to attend a graduate program and become a licensed architect.
Receiving the internship will allow me to earn the required hours needed to become
licensed as well as learn directly from a professional architect. Furthermore, I believe
that interning in Germany will help prepare me to apply to graduate schools in Germany
upon my graduation from UIC. In this way I believe receiving the Bridges Award and the
internship could shape the course of my future education, career, and life. Thank you
again for all of the help you have given, you truly have helped open a world of
possibilities to me.

Sincerely,
Nicholas Beard

Kelsi Morefield

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Jacobson,
The Bridges Award has made it possible for me to conduct independent research

this summer. Without it, this summer research would not even be an option for me.
I consider this summer research project a huge milestone for my future career.

As a Communication major, I have a deep interest in communication technologies,
journalism history, and everything having to do with the way people communicate and
why. I would love to be able to conduct my own communication research someday,
maybe on cross-cultural communication, on the role of Skype in long-distance
relationships, or on the effectiveness of applications like Linguee or Duolingo for helping
language learners. All of this work will entail in-depth work in researching scholarly
papers on the topics, in conducting my own research, and in compiling my findings for
peer review. This independent research project, under the supervision of Professor
Fortmann, will give me first-hand experience with two of these three activities. I will
spend the month searching every inch of the library, asking librarians, contacting
sources, to find the “lost” works of Eduard von Keyserling, works that were thought to
have been destroyed after his death. The effort to find his lost works will definitely not
be easy, but I am excited to take up the task. I am not only excited for this experience,
but I am also eager to have these few weeks of experience doing the intense research
and work that will help me learn how to do independent research.

Of course, my love for German and my love for communication go hand-in-hand,
and when I do finally get the opportunity to do research of my own, it will hopefully be in
Austria or Germany, but will definitely be in relation to US-German or US-Austrian
communication, as the relationship between these two cultures and the two
governments is of great interest to me.

As for short-term goals, I would be remiss to not mention the fact that I wish to
move to Vienna after receiving my B.A. to pursue a Master’s degree in Communication
Science at the University of Vienna. Hopefully, with my German experience and
Austrian degree, this will give me the opportunity to live and work in the region in I am
so interested and abut which I am so passionate.

I thank you for so generously giving me this amazing opportunity. I know that it
will only be a few short weeks, but I know that this time in Vienna will hugely impact
what I decide to do with my future, and how I interpret the work that I hope someday do.
Without the Bridges Award, I would not have the resources to start working towards my
dreams of both studying in Vienna and conducting communication research in a
German-speaking country.

Your gift allows me, along with my fellow students, to take these steps to not
only achieve our long-term goals, but to actually live them now.

Kelsi Morefield

Karina Duncker-Hoffmann

Chicago, 04/26/2019

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Jacobson,

I would like to thank you for the wonderful opportunity I am given through your generous
award and to introduce myself.

I am currently in my first year as a Ph.D. student in UIC’s Department of Germanic
Studies and extremely happy to be here. I hold the German equivalent of a B.A. in
English and History (Classical and European) and an M.A in Secondary Education from
Hamburg University, Germany. After several years at a pharmaceutical and cosmetics
company in Hamburg, Germany, where I was in charge of the company’s foreign
language program, I taught English and German at high schools, companies and
universities in Japan, Italy, and the USA. In Germany and Japan, I worked with
programs for cultural orientation and integration and as a crisis counselor and volunteer
trainer for Tokyo English Lifeline.

I moved to the United States from Milan, Italy in 2006 and have been teaching German
and English as a Second Language at North Central College in Naperville since 2008. I
am an active member of the AATG (American Association for Teachers of German) and
of the Northern Illinois AATG Chapter Executive Board. Since 2014, I have been part of
the organizing committee and a workshop leader for the Annual Northern Illinois
Immersion Day for College Students. When I am not teaching or studying, I am either
cooking for friends and family, reading, or practicing Pilates and yoga.

My career goal is to never stop learning and improving the quality of my own teaching.
To this end, I will participate in a 40-hour seminar on history and culture of memory,
organized by the Goethe Institute in cooperation with the City of Berlin. Participants will
visit historical monuments, spaces and places in Berlin, conduct historical research and
discuss this with contemporary witnesses, such as former GDR citizens and Stasi-
prisoners, thus deepening their knowledge of post-fascist Berlin and German history. I
wish to integrate this newly acquired knowledge into my own teaching. Following this
course, I will explore Berlin, Potsdam, and the Mark Brandenburg, continuing my
research on the German Realist novel that is the basis for a potential dissertation topic.
Through the Bridges Award, I will be able to gain a sense of place for Berlin, Germany’s
past and present capital, where I have never spent more than a few hours or a day, and
incorporate a deeper understanding of German literature, art, history and politics of the
19th and 20th century into my teaching and my research.

Thank you again for this wonderful chance to become a better teacher and student.

Sincerely,

Karina Duncker-Hoffmann

Maryann Piel

April 30th, 2019

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Jacobson,

I’m writing to you to express my gratitude for your generous donation to the
Germanic Studies Department. I am grateful for the opportunities your support has
made possible for me and my fellow Germanic Studies students. Receiving the Bridges
Award will have significant impact on my research and professional development goals,
and for this I am very thankful.

I have had the pleasure of meeting both of you several times over the years,
having received support from the Bridges Award in 2016. While you do know a bit about
me already, I would like to share what I’ve most recently been up to. I am currently
completing my second year in the Ph.D. program. After completing my M.A., I attended
a seminar put on by the Goethe Institut in Berlin for teachers of German as a foreign
language, with your generous financial support. There, I met a wonderful and diverse
group of German instructors. We workshopped lesson plans, brushed up on our own
German, discussed current events and trends in Germany, and explored Berlin.
Following this great experience, I spent a year putting what I learned into practice. I
worked as an instructor at Carthage College and at the DANK Haus Chicago. During
this time, I served as Conference Coordinator for the Austrian Studies Association
Conference and worked at the Goethe Institut-Chicago, where I assisted with various
projects, including a German-STEM teacher training seminar and translating and editing
German language teaching materials around the topic of sustainability. After this very
exciting year working in the field, I decided to return to UIC. I spent the academic year
2017/2018 at the Humboldt University in Berlin, where I had the opportunity to meet
Germanic Studies students from around the world as well as work with new professors
with diverse research interests. This experience was very beneficial to me. It helped
broaden my own research interests and brought me to a better understanding of the
different academic systems. This year I am working as a Teaching Assistant in the
department.

With the second year of my Ph.D. studies coming to a close, I am at an important
and exciting stage in my doctoral studies as I transition from participating in seminars to
narrowing my research focus and conducting more independent research. I plan to
complete the preliminary examinations in the Spring of 2020. As I will be writing my
dissertation prospectus that same semester, I am eager to use my time this summer to
conduct preliminary research and to participate in the Notre Dame Berlin Seminar “Der
Literaturbetrieb: Key Players in Germany’s Literary Institutions.” The research project I
propose to work on this summer, considers the representations of celebrity in terms of

what I’m calling “manipulated reality.” By this I mean the ‘reality’ mediated through
literature and television which results in an alternate reality. I am interested in
understanding the captivating power of blending reality, fiction and celebrity in both
literature (my jumping off point for this is Thomas Mann’s 1939 Novel Lotte in Weimar)
and modern-day Reality TV. I am specifically interested in examples of this that let the
audience get a personal look at the life of celebrity, in many cases that of B-List
celebrities, showing the labor involved in maintaining their status.

The second part of my summer research endeavors is the two-week Notre Dame
Berlin Seminar. This is quite an amazing opportunity to work with and learn from experts
in the field as well as participate in daily discussions with German literary scholars from
a wide range of academic institutions and representing broad research interests.
Participation in this seminar will be invaluable, not only for what is sure to be a
stimulating discussion and an opportunity to work so closely with experts, but also
because of the direct connection the focus of this year’s seminar has to my research
project. The seminar addresses an aspect of the field that is often not covered in
literature seminars but that is of central concern to my interest in celebrity and
“manipulated reality.” The core questions of this research project align with many of
those I imagine publishers and authors are often asking themselves when preparing to
publish.

I’m really looking forward to attending the Notre Dame Berlin Seminar and using
this opportunity to conduct the research necessary to prepare for my preliminary exams.
Spending this time actively working towards my academic goals is something that would
be very difficult to do over the summer without the help of Bridges Award. I am sincerely
thankful for your support.

Kind regards,

Maryann Piel

Jennifer Sengun

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Jacobson,

I am Jennifer Sengun and currently a first-year M.A. student in Germanic Studies.
Currently, my educational goal is to complete my Master´s degree and then begin PhD studies
at the University of Illinois at Chicago as well. My ultimate career goal is to be a professor at a
University who teaches German literature, language, culture, and history to students who have
no knowledge or a limited amount of knowledge in those areas. In conjunction with my M.A.
studies, I also teach undergraduate students in my capacity as a TA for the Germanic Studies
Department. I also involve myself in my community by teaching soccer to boys (2nd to 5th-
graders) on the weekends. Last year, I taught girls (middle school age) soccer and volleyball.
Through my community service and now my graduate school, I have learned that teaching
students, regardless of age, is very satisfying and rewarding. And by doing both, in my career
and also in my private life, I have found myself thoroughly enjoying this experience. I have
hence decided to make teaching my career goal.

The “Fruman and Marian Jacobson ‘Bridges’ Fund” gives me the opportunity to travel to
Weimar, Germany and to actively engage in research about Weimar Classicism, the period
that includes authors such as Goethe and Schiller. This specific research will help provide the
basis for my Master’s degree exam preparation.

I hereby thank you for your support that enables me to further my education and my
research in Germanic Studies.

Thank you so much!

Jennifer Sengun

Maria Speggiorin

Dear Mr. Fruman and Ms. Marian Jacobson,
I write you this letter to sincerely thank you for funding my project for this

summer. I am extremely grateful for your generosity, and I cannot express how I felt
when I discovered that my application had been approved and that I would actually
have this chance. I am still waiting for an answer from the organizers of the workshop to
which I applied in Berlin and Leipzig, but I want to be optimistic in this regard.

In this letter I would also like to tell you more about me, so that you can also
better understand why this opportunity is so important to me.

As you already know, I am a first year MA student in Germanic Studies at the
University of Illinois at Chicago. I graduated with my BA degree in Foreign Languages
(English-German) at the University of Trento, in Italy, with a thesis on Constructivism
and Language Learning. I later graduated with my MA degree in Language Teaching
(with a focus on German) at the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice with a thesis on
Experiential Learning and figurative art applied to a class of Italian as a Second
Language that I was teaching in that period. During my Masters in Italy I first
volunteered for a Regional Civil Service project for the Social Cooperative “Adelante”
and was then hired by the same cooperative for two years. In Adelante I developed
projects for pre-teens and teens in collaboration with schools, municipalities and other
local institutions in order to promote integration and active citizenship. In the same
period, I taught Italian to European volunteers serving in the same cooperative, and I
gave private lessons in English and German to middle school students. Before starting
my MA at UIC I taught a movie-making course to middle school students with the aim to
improve their Italian language skills.

I enrolled in the Germanic Studies MA program at UIC to engage more deeply
with German literary studies, to experience a different academic educational system
and to consider the possibility of applying to a PhD program in Germanic Studies. Even
though I had recently focused my attention mainly in teaching and educational
methodologies and practices, I felt that I could not abandon the study of literature and I
wanted to engage more intensively in literary research. The Germanic Studies program
at UIC gave me the possibility to integrate my interests both in education and literature.
In November I took part in the Max Kade Conference on “Comic Art and/as

Remembrance in German Culture and Beyond” and in April in the annual Austrian
Studies Association conference held at the Bowling Green State University (OH). In
April I also helped organize the biannual graduate student conference “Converging
Narratives - Speak OUT! Shut UP!”.

My educational aims during my MA studies at UIC are to strengthen my
knowledge in German literature, to develop teaching skills as a TA in my second year
and to try to find my own way as teacher and literary scholar either in academia or in
other educational institutions.

The Summer School and the Reading Group in Berlin and Leipzig focus on
literature and engagement, literature and politics and how these spheres are
interrelated with one another. As you could see from the few notes I just gave you about
my past career, I am strongly interested in education and in if and how literature plays
an important role to broaden our thinking and to educate society. Taking part in the
events held in Berlin and Leipzig would surely give me new perspectives on these
questions, it would help me narrow my future research field. Therefore I would like to
repeat again, possibly even more strongly, that I am extremely grateful to you for this
unique chance you are giving me.

I really look forward to meeting with you personally.

Yours sincerely,
Maria Speggiorin

Anne Wooten

25. April 2019

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Jacobson,

My name is Anne Wooten and I am currently in my first semester of the Germanic
Studies M.A. program at UIC. I am very thankful that the “Bridges” fund has given me
access to more opportunities so that I can delve more intensively into my studies. This
fund will allow me to take an intensive C1 level German course at the Goethe Institute in
Berlin before I study for a semester at the Humboldt University. It will allow me to be
more at ease with less worry about financial burdens, so that I can focus in a more
concentrated manner on my studies. This intensive language course will help prepare a
foundation for my advanced-level studies in German literature and culture. It will help
me gain C1-level German skills, which is the requirement for the M.A. program, and it
will allow me to function within the language with more ease. I appreciate your funding
and the opportunities that it opens up for me.

Sincerely,

Anne Wooten

REPORTS ON
FALL 2018 AND SPRING 2019
“BRIDGES” FUNDED ACTIVITIES

Andrew Tuider

(undergraduate)

Dear Fruman and Marian Jacobson,
Thank you for your generous Bridges grant! I have been making sure to put it to

good use while I have been in Vienna. I have been here for almost 2 months, and my
experience has been fantastic! I am taking classes at the Economics University
(Wirtschaftsuniversität) and the University of Vienna (Universität Wien), which are all in
German. My German skills have developed very quickly due in part to my classes, but
mostly from simply being surrounded by the opportunity to speak, hear, and read the
language outside of the classroom. One of the best aspects of my semester abroad has
been living in a city of politics and diplomacy. Alongside Germanic Studies, my other
major is Political Science which I hope to use for a career in the Foreign Service. In
Vienna, alongside classes about Austrian and European Union politics, I have had the
opportunity to see politics in action. With the European Parliament elections happening
in May, I have attended conferences concerning Austria’s role in the election, the rise of
populism in Eastern Europe, and similar topics that I would engage with in a career with
the foreign service. Vienna is also home to one of the four office sites of the United
Nations, which highlights the importance of the city in diplomacy. I have been able to
tour the complex and learn about what diplomacy entails, namely fields such as drugs
and crime, the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and space technology, industrial
development, and the care of refugees.

Not only has the Bridges grant helped me pursue interests related to my major
and career goals, it has allowed me to be able to spend the semester in Vienna and
take advantage of what it has to offer. Vienna has been consistently ranked as the most
livable city in the world, which I would say is very true. I am able to see plays and
concerts in world-class venues such as the Imperial Burgtheather or the Musikverein.
One of my favorite aspects of the city is the café culture. Almost every street has a café
where anyone can order a coffee and sit for as long as they want to study, read, or just
talk with friends. Overall, being in Vienna is giving me the opportunity to strengthen
skills that will help me in an international career and broadening my understanding of
German language and culture in a way that I could not just learn in a classroom.

Erin Gizewski

(graduate)

Dear Marian and Fruman Jacobson,
I am writing to thank you for the generous Bridges Grant I received last year. I

could not be more grateful, as the scholarship money has helped me tremendously as I
embark on my first doctoral semester at the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin. Although
I’ve only just started my semester here, the opportunities I’ve encountered to improve
my German, deepen my knowledge and understanding of the German culture, and
delve further into my research interests have been numerous and immeasurable.

For the past four weeks in Berlin, I have taken part in an intensive language
preparatory course through the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin. The course met every
weekday for five hours. The opportunity to take this course before I begin my semester
at Humboldt has been invaluable. I was placed in a higher language niveau, which
allowed me to take part in an intensive course that was quite detail-oriented. We spent
much of class speaking and analyzing texts in German, paying careful attention to the
nuances of the language and associated connotations difficult to grasp outside of
cultural contexts. The course has helped me to refine and fine-tune my language skills,
something which is essential as I continue to study and analyze German literature, film,
and critical theory in my doctoral studies. Additionally, this intensive language course
has ensured that I will be able to accurately express my findings to an audience in
German while speaking or via written text. This will not only aid me in my semester at
Humboldt Universität zu Berlin but will also open more opportunities for me to present in
German-speaking conferences and to publish articles in both English and German
journals, both of which are integral to my future success as a Germanic Studies scholar.

The nuances of language are intimately connected with a deeper understanding
of cultural contexts, and Berlin is rife with opportunities to encounter German history
and experience its direct impact on German culture. With the language course I just
completed, I had the opportunity to speak and interact with those who have lived in the
city for over two decades. We spent one day each week walking through a different
neighborhood of Berlin with our course instructor, who is a Berlin native. We were able
to explore each of these neighborhoods with our course instructor, who knew and grew
up with the history of the city. Even more important, however, have been the
opportunities to explore the city and its many museums and historical sights. Although

I’ve known about the rich, difficult, and multi-faceted history that makes Berlin and
Germany what they are today, physically visiting museums, the remnants of the Berlin
Wall, and many other landmarks of German history within the context of contemporary
Berlin engenders a deeper historical understanding that is integral to my understanding
of German culture and, thus, my research.

Finally, I’ve had the opportunity to explore my research interests within a German
context by attending art installations and theater and dance performances. Because my
research interests are related to the role of the body in culture and how the connection
between body and mind manifests itself in different contexts, the ability to be able to
physically attend such performances and exhibitions has been extremely helpful.
Among many of the ones I have attended so far, the photo installation “Frauen in der
Werbung” has been particularly influential on my research and has helped me to
explore the many depictions of women and their bodies in German and Austrian
advertisements through the span of 100 years. This very practical, very tangible
manifestation of the perceived societal connection between mind and body—or the lack
thereof—is important as I continue to learn more about the theoretical underpinnings of
such depictions. I will be able to use such exhibitions and performances in future essays
and articles.

Being in Berlin has certainly led to invaluable experiences that have helped me
strengthen my language skills, deepen my cultural understanding, and explore new and
exciting paths in my research interests. This opportunity so far has been more than I
could have ever imagined, and I could not be more grateful to have been awarded the
Bridges Grant, as none of this would have been possible without such support. Thank
you, Mr. and Mrs. Jacobson, for the opportunity to broaden my horizons and start the
next chapter of my studies towards a Germanic Studies professorship.

With Gratitude,

Erin Gizewski

Hajar Kermani

(graduate)

Hajar Kermani
Fall 2018

I am very grateful for the generous Bridges grant I received in Fall 2018. The
grant allowed me to take an online course in Second Language Acquisition and
teaching, a passion I discovered during my MA studies in the Department of Germanic
Studies at UIC. This course, offered through Northern State University, helped me to
deepen my knowledge about the science of language learning and to read empirical
research studies more efficiently. Subsequently, I was able to choose Second
Language Learning as one of my areas of specialization in my MA exam. I now know
that I want to pursue a career in the teaching of German.

Prior to arriving at UIC, I had only been accustomed to learning in a traditional
classroom. Learning about student-centered teaching techniques and how to create
communicative teaching materials has been an eye-opening experience. I discovered
that students learn about German culture, vocabulary, and grammar while they interact
with each other as they complete language tasks.

The readings and discussions in the online course further helped me to
understand variables that impact the learning of another language, such as age, the
learner’s native language, and the learning environment. I will be able to apply this
knowledge to the different teaching environments I might be working in in the future. In
particular, I feel that I am better equipped to teach classes with students who have
different native languages. In my future teaching I will be able to tailor my lessons
according to student needs and create a positive learning environment for all of my
students.

In addition, taking a course online has helped me to better understand the
challenges of online learning and teaching. I have seen how a learning community
motivates studying. In an online environment where one does not meet with an
instructor and peers face-to-face, it is particularly important to regularly interact with
classmates and take advantage of online discussion tools. The discussions are
particularly fruitful if every student takes the time to participate with meaningful

contributions. Despite the challenges, I could see myself teaching in an online
environment.

I am certain I will be able to apply these insights in my future teaching. Therefore,
I am very grateful for the Bridges grant as it has paved the way for my future career.