Interview with Patrick Molitoris about Working at the United Nations

Your CLS experience and foreign language skills can enhance an intended career path or lead to a completely unexpected profession or academic pursuit.  Foreign language skills and cultural sensitivity gained through experience abroad add depth to a resume and underscore a candidate’s versatility and adaptability. Even when a candidate has less direct experience with an organization's line of work, many employers consider hiring a candidate who has shown an ability to devote him or herself to the pursuit of studying a foreign language and culture.

Although many CLS alumni are in school, many have graduated and are currently working in exciting fields.
In the future, we plan to feature more profiles from alumni working in interesting fields.

This month, we share with you an interview with Patrick S. Molitoris (Malang, Indonesia '12), who works at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Where do you work?

I work in the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Washington, DC. Our office’s mandate covers the resettlement and protection of refugees, asylum-seekers, and stateless individuals.

My work primarily focuses on supporting the office’s efforts to form and implement legislation that provides a path to citizenship for stateless individuals living within U.S. borders. This work has been fast-tracked due to the ongoing dialogue over comprehensive immigration reform. By a grand stroke of luck, I’ve been able to travel quite a lot over the past several months to carry out this statelessness-related advocacy work—to New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Honolulu, even American Samoa!

  

How did you find out about the position?

I had been in contact with the office previously—informally with a staff member in the U.S. Protection Unit (USPU), and formally with the External Relations Unit. When my contact in the USPU identified a need for an extra brain on the office’s campaign to end statelessness in the U.S., she called me to take the role. This happened shortly after I completed the CLS Program in Malang.

Did your CLS language give you an edge over other candidates for the position?

I don’t think that people in my office realized I spoke Indonesian until about three months ago, when some gay Indonesian asylum-seekers appeared in the Caribbean. The office’s Caribbean Unit was preparing to conduct refugee status determinations with these Indonesian fishermen, and I took an interest, letting the protection associate involved know that I might be able to help.

Do you get to use your CLS language in your job?

Not yet, unfortunately. The Indonesian asylum-seekers in Trinidad seem to have disappeared.

If a student is interested in following a similar career path, what advice would you give?

UNHCR’s Washington office offers many internships during the fall, spring, and summer—particularly for law students. I’d highly recommend applying for an internship in the office and when doing so, be specific about the kind of work you’re passionate about or interested in exploring.

What are some other job fields that you considered or found intriguing during your job search?

My professional interests are rather niche, so I am trying to figure out my path into my dream position. I’m interested in structures of protection for LGBTI individuals living outside of the United States, and formalizing/prioritizing the development of a “gay underground railroad” for these individuals. I’ve steered away from NGO work for the most part, looking to international government partners like UNHCR and UNRWA as well as U.S. government agencies like U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. I’m still searching for the right place for myself.

  

What general career or job-search advice would you give to CLS alumni who are graduating soon?

If possible, be open to the idea of unpaid internships, particularly if you’re in the DC area. It may be a lot of seemingly thankless work in the beginning, but if you make a serious impression on your superiors, you’ll pave your path for the future. Also make what you want to be doing clear to others, and keep talking about it. You never knew who you might stumble across that’ll help you open another door.

Opening the Door to Russian for Spanish Speakers

By Gabriela Martinez (Ufa, Russia '12)

I used the CLS Alumni Development Fund award to further my own study of Russian and help others in Puerto Rico have the opportunity to learn it also.

From December to March, I took private lessons with a Russian professor at the University of Puerto Rico.  Our class met once a week and focused mainly on verb usage, writing, conversation, and reading.

Using some of the ADF funds, I purchased a Spanish-Russian textbook called “Ruso para Hispanohablantes,” which I used during our lessons.  Although I had already mastered most of the grammar concepts presented in the book , my professor was able to discuss material further in depth and help me strengthen my knowledge of fundamental grammar concepts, which will be very helpful to my overall Russian-language skills.  As part of the class, I also wrote three long compositions in Russian.

In addition to this, I also tutored beginning Russian students at the University of Puerto Rico.  During the sessions, I usually reviewed material the professor had presented in class and devised grammar practice drills. I also designed test reviews and distributed them to the students.  I really enjoy this tutoring because by helping students understand the Russian language, I am also helping them to acquire a genuine interest in Russian culture in general.  I have also worked with a student of Russian and translation to host weekly screenings of classic Soviet and Russian films.

Another component of my Alumni Development Fund project consisted in volunteering at the inaugural event of Puerto Rico’s first Russian Cultural Center, which officially opened its doors on February 20 in San Juan.  During the opening week, I volunteered as a Russian interpreter for Russian government officials, representatives from Russian media, and Russian musicians who came to Puerto Rico to participate in the Center’s opening ceremony.  From January to now, I have also been writing newspaper articles, distributing flyers, and volunteering in activities organized by Russian-Puerto Rican Foundation, a non-profit organization devoted facilitating cultural, academic and travel-related exchanges between Puerto Rico and Russia.

My initial goals for my CLS Alumni Development Fund activity were to integrate the Spanish language into my understanding of Russian and to promote Russian language and cultural activities in Puerto Rico.  As soon as I began achieving these goals, more opportunities opened up to help me achieve these and other goals.  I made deeper connections with Puerto Rico’s local Russian community and even began working as an English teacher for a Russian family that lives in San Juan.  My Alumni Development Fund project, aside from helping me improve my Russian skills, has helped develop my teaching skills and enabled me to share my passion for Russian culture, language, and history with others.

Note:  Congratulations to Gabriela, who was recently awarded a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship in Russia for next year!

Scholarly Literary Information from Both Sides of the Atlantic

By David Moberly (Tangier, Morocco '12)

Using funds from the CLS Alumni Development Fund, I attended and presented at the Captivity Writing Unbound Conference at the University of South Alabama. The event featured a gathering of scholars from around the world who were researching captivity literature and its influence on world culture.

The conference took place on the University’s idyllic Baldwin County campus near the eastern shore of Mobile Bay. The setting was an ideal place for me to present my own research in a paper entitled “Mary Rowlandson, William Okeley, and the ‘Goodness of God’: The Transatlantic Migration of the Captivity Narrative.”

I had two basic goals for this conference. One was to introduce this group of scholars to the way in which the American literary tradition of the captivity narrative was connected to earlier British narratives about life in slavery in Arab North Africa. The other was to further my own professional goals as an academic, trying to bridge the gap between North African and English scholarship on captivity.

The event was successful on both counts. I received a lot of excellent feedback from the American scholars who heard my presentation, and this feedback will help me as I move my research forward toward publication. I also was able to share with scholars, not only in my presentation but in a variety of moments both formal and informal throughout the conference, the sometimes surprising differences in the ways in which captivity was understood and researched on the two sides of the Atlantic. Some scholars asked for suggestions about how they might incorporate the North African connection more into their classrooms, and I was able to offer my ideas. I hope this will lead to more students around the country being exposed to a larger world.

I have already begun to incorporate the many things I learned at this conference into my research. My hope is to include a chapter on Mary Rowlandson and her connections with North African narratives in my dissertation, as well as in future publications. What I learned at this conference will be invaluable to me in meeting that goal, and will aid me in getting this information out to an even wider audience. I am grateful to the CLS Alumni Development Fund for helping me take advantage of this opportunity.

Purchasing Textbooks for Korean-Language Students

By Isra Nikoolkan (Jeonju, Korea '11 and '12, CLS Alumni Ambassador)

I used the funds awarded to me by the CLS Alumni Development Fund to purchase Korean-language textbooks for the College of William and Mary's HelloWM Korean Language program.  The HelloWM Korean program is a group on campus that aims to help students learn Korean because the College of William and Mary currently does not offer classes in Korean.

The textbooks I purchased varied in content, material, and purpose, but the combination of these books is what will help give the HelloWM program a strong foundation to use for its grassroots language instruction.

These textbooks are helping us supplement our classes with additional information and practice.  Our student-teachers (native Korean speakers who are students at the College of William and Mary) have also benefited because they are able to create a curriculum based on the textbooks and track progress week-by-week using the lesson plans in the textbooks.  In this way, the textbooks are helping provide a pedagogical structure to help them teach and us to learn Korean.

This activity has benefited me academically and personally.  As a teacher for the HelloWM Korean program, I learn something new every day as I teach others.  As a student, I also learn something new about Korean every day from the wealth of knowledge provided by my teachers and the supplementary information in our Korean textbooks.

These textbooks will be left at the college and will therefore have a long-term impact on students studying Korean.  I also plan to share the outcomes of this activity by engaging the W&M Arts and Sciences administration to try to bring Korean language classes to the school by showing how the ever-growing HelloWM Korean program has an active following of interested and motivated students.

Turkish Cultural Night

by Damian Harris-Hernandez (Bursa, Turkey '12)

My CLS Alumni Development Fund project was to organize a Turkish cultural event that I hoped would bring together Columbia University students studying Turkish or interested in studying Turkish and native Turkish speakers from the broader New York Turkish community.

This event was a large-scale Turkish Tea Time held in the School of International Affairs at Columbia University.  To achieve this, I led the Columbia Turkish Club in teaming up with two other groups on campus (The Middle East Institute and SIPA Turkish Initiative).  We invited the Columbia Middle Eastern Music Ensemble to perform while we shared a large meal together.

More than 160 people attended the event, including two other CLS alumni -- Christin Zurback and Harun Buljina (both Bursa, Turkey '12).  We encouraged people to bring homemade Turkish dishes in addition to the food we provided using funds from the CLS Alumni Development Fund.  So many people came that we ran out of food!

Everyone from the beginning and intermediate Turkish classes and about half of the advanced students came to the event.  There were also prospective students and people who knew very little about Turkish culture.  Turkish nationals from inside and outside the Columbia community also attended, which enabled us to practice our language skills.

I met a lot of new people who I hope to work with to organize future events.  I also had the opportunity to talk with graduate students about continuing my Turkish studies and finding work that would allow me to use my Turkish skills, since I'm graduating this spring.  Other students had similar opportunities to make friends and network with people in the Turkish community.

 

The event exceeded my expectations, and I feel there is a renewed excitement among these campus groups to network and collaborate on future projects.  After the event, more than thirty people joined the Columbia Turkish Club's Facebook page!

CLS Photo and Video Contest Honorable Mentions

Congratulations to the 2012 CLS alumni whose photo and video submissions were selected as honorable mentions in the CLS Photo and Video Contest!

Intensive Language Study Category

"Concentration" by Allyson Voss (Lucknow, India '12)
This picture shows two Urdu students learning about the production of Urdu calligraphy from a monolingual community member.  This was a great part of the week where students got to work on both the oral and written production of Urdu.

"Week 1 - al Mustakshifeen" ("The Explorers") by Greg Coy (Rabat, Morocco '12)
The most incredible quality of the CLS experience is living where the language you're studying is spoken. Making friends, getting lost, and relying on your Arabic to get home or make a friend are the kinds of experiences language study makes possible. I took this photo at the end of our first walking tour of Rabat.  Here our speaking buddies are trying to help each of us get back to our homestays. (B&W Ilford 400, Nikon FG20)

People & Culture Category

"Milking a Cow" by Nisha Shah (Chandigarh, India '12)
A CLS 2012 Punjabi student learns to successfully milk a cow in Marauli Kalan, a small village near Chandigarh. Dairy farming is an important aspect of Marauli Kalan's livelihood.  In this picture, Beth communicates with a local resident to learn how to milk a cow.

"Learning Among the Manganiyar" by Theodore Ceplina (Jaipur, India '12)
Here I am seated with my kamaicha teacher, Ghewar Khan Manganiyar. His father (to my right), the living legend Padma Bhushan Sakar Khan Manganiyar, looks on in interest.  The maker of my instrument (t,o Ghewar's left), Shankara Ram Suthar, also watches as I make my first steps towards learning kamaicha. Sakarji and his family live in a small village called Hamira, which is home to many Manganiyar musicians. Kamaicha is a dying art and it was an honor to learn from some of the greatest living musicians of kamaicha.

CLS Spirit Category

"Soba Noodles from Scratch" by Dana Fager (Kyoto, Japan '11 and '12)
During a cultural excursion, we made our own soba noodles from scratch.  In this picture, we are preparing the dough in order to roll it out into flat sheets.  We had to put forth our best effort because we ate the finished product for lunch!

"Basketball Game with Migrant Workers' Children" by Brittany Brock (Beijing, China '12)
CLS participant Isaac watches as a young child of a Chinese migrant worker takes a shot in a basketball game. During this day-long expedition to the migrant workers' children's school, CLS Beijing students played with the children and helped make aesthetic improvements to their aging school.

Videos

"Learning Tari Topeng Malangan (Indonesian Mask Dance)" by Rebecca Gluckstein (Malang, Indonesia '12)
Over the course of the CLS Program, four students studied Malang's traditional mask dance with one of the university dance teachers, Bu Tri. Although we initially wanted to learn two dances, it turns out that tari topeng is more difficult than we expected, especially once you put the masks on. This is a compilation of videos taken during our dance rehearsals and performance, as well as a performance at a sanggar.  explanations of costumes, choreography, and the rehearsal process.

"Jeonju Style" by Margarethe McDonald, John McEwen, and Molly Resnick (Jeonju, Korea '12)
In this video, we parodied the popular Korean song Kangnam Style by changing the lyrics to describe the people of Jeonju. By interacting with the people and places of Jeonju through writing and filming it, welearned a lot about the dialect and culture of southern South Korea.

"Do, Re, Mi, Saz" by Jennifer Kaiser (Bursa, Turkey '12)
The "bağlama" is one of the most uniquely Turkish instruments with a widespread presence in the country today. This particular instrument belongs to the "saz " family, which means "stringed."

CLS Photo and Video Contest Grand-Prize Winner

Congratulations to Alexa Smith (Rabat, Morocco '12)!  Her photo "Shadow Caravan" was selected as the grand-prize winner of the CLS Photo and Video Contest.

Alexa wrote the following about her photo:

During a free weekend, several CLS students and I traveled by train and bus almost to the Algerian border to visit the Sahara. On a guided expedition led by descendants of the area's original nomadic inhabitants, we rode into the dunes on camel-back and slept under the stars.

CLS Photo and Video Contest Category Winners

Congratulations to the CLS Photo and Video Contest category winners!  Below are the winning entries by category, along with a short blurb from the alumni who submitted each photo/video.

Intensive Language Study

"In the Classroom" by Jamie Manley (Shanghai, China '12)
Zhao Laoshi thinks about how to explain a grammar patter to CLS student Ethan Prizant.

People & Culture

"The Cookie Shop" by Garik Sadovy (Malang, Indonesia '12)
Light pours forth from the windows above one of East Java's prime examples of the Indonesian handmade snack industry. Rollers, bakers, cookers, folders, and handlers come together in this workshop to create some of the best snacks in Java.  During the CLS Program, the students were given the opportunity to interview them and learn a bit about their lives.

CLS Spirit

"Spirited Chefs" by Todd Friends (Xi'an, China '12)
After a few hours of training from the chefs of the Shaanxi Culinary Institute, the CLS Xi'an students started getting the hang of local dishes. The final samples were "很 好."

Video

"Merzouga" by Greg Coy (Rabat, Morocco '12)
Intensive language study and acquisition needs to be accompanied by similarly engaged interaction. After a very difficult travel experience to get to Merzouga, we were exhausted and discouraged, but when film and audio equipment sparked the curiosity of our guides we couldn't help but do our best to have an engaging conversation; the result is an attempted ethnographic-minded short film.