Dear Editor:
I’d like to make public an idea for a groundbreaking collaboration between Hoboken, Stevens Institute of Technology and the Symposia community project. Symposia has already begun a relationship with Stevens by agreeing to host the DeBaun Art Center’s upcoming poetry series. That relationship was strengthened this week by a productive lunch meeting at Karma Kafe between me (I host a weekly open conversation at Symposia), Cornel Rusu (the director of the Symposia Project) and Sophie Hales, director of ESL at Stevens.
This past Spring I taught at ESL class at Stevens, working with students from Russia, South Korea and Thailand to help improve their English. Of the four colleges I’ve taught at, Sophie is by far the best supervisor I’ve ever worked for. Some of the reasons for this are her openness to new ideas, her grasp of the latest research on language learning and her willingness to engage in exploratory dialogue. During one of our famously long dialogues, Sophie said she noticed my letter to the editor in the Reporter about my open conversation salon at Symposia. She said that for years she’s wanted to launch just such a project for the foreign students at Stevens and asked if I would collaborate with her on making this dream a reality. I agreed, and I’m happy to report that the new “conversation club” for foreign students at Stevens is off to a wonderful start.
When I mentioned the success of Stevens’ new “conversation club” to Symposia’s Cornel Rusu, he was elated. He wanted to have lunch with me and Sophie right away to explore other potential projects between Symposia and Stevens. So as we released our imaginations to ponder what might be over a delicious Indian meal at Karma, here’s what we came up with.
The now vacant political club on Washington Street that served as Hoboken United’s campaign headquarters, would be a wonderful storefront to serve as a shared space between the city of Hoboken, Stevens and Symposia. One possible project could be public presentations by the various cultural clubs at Stevens, providing opportunities for the community to learn something new about the dozens of ethnic groups represented on campus. They could give a talk, present some food from their culture, play music, read poetry and excerpts from the literature of their homeland, or show a film. A crucial part of the event would be to sit in a circle and have an authentic dialogue to enhance cross-cultural understanding, celebrate our differences and move beyond stereotypes.
The public schools could also be part of this project, providing a wonderful opportunity for Hoboken students to learn about different cultures. Stevens would benefit by being more connected to the Hoboken community, and Hoboken could serve as a model city for breaking new ground in deepening cross-cultural understanding at a time when the world needs it more than ever. If you have any thoughts about making this dream a reality, call me at 201-792-0085. Or better yet, come to my weekly conversation salon at the Symposia bookstore, 511 Willow Avenue, every Wednesday at 7 p.m. Hope to see you there.
John Bredin