Student Union
- By Pete Musto
Researching for Perfection at the University of Nevada Las Vegas
Dawid Mzyk and Marta Plominska have not always agreed on where their educational or career paths might take them.
Both students are from Poland. Mzyk was born 28 years ago in the city of Jaworzno. Plominska, age 25, was born in Radzionkow.
Both are musicians. Mzyk plays trombone, while Plominska plays another wind instrument, the flute.
The two had been in a relationship for several years when Mzyk earned a master’s degree at the Academy of Music in Kraków. He completed his studies in 2014.
Moving to the US
At that time, Plominska had a few years left in her own master’s degree program at the Academy of Music. But Mzyk could not wait to continue his education. He felt any delay would limit him from pushing his abilities as a musician even further.
About 10 years earlier, Mzyk had visited the United States and enjoyed his time there. So he decided he wanted to attend an American college or university. However, Plominska had no desire to leave Europe.
In the end, Mzyk was admitted to a two-year program at Columbus State University in Columbus, Georgia. He began studying there on his own in 2015.
But Mzyk and Plominska would not let their differences nor the distance end their relationship. In 2016, they decided to eventually get married. And once Plominska earned her master’s degree, she agreed to come to the U.S. and give its higher education system a try.
Culture shock
From her very first day in Georgia, Plominska says she had major difficulties to overcome. For example, Kraków has a large public transportation system, which many locals use, while Columbus has only a few buses. Without a car, she and Mzyk found it hard to do what, back in Poland, had been some of the simplest things, such as going to a store to buy food.
But Plominksa says she also noted a major difference in the behavior of Americans compared to the people back home.
“The people in the U.S. … they are really smiling a lot, I think. They smiling on the street when they pass you, and they usually can say, ‘Hi. How are you?’ which will never happen to you in Europe.”
Slowly, these and other qualities of life in the U.S. began to make Plominska enjoy herself, she says. Then, enjoying life as an international student became even more important. Both she and Mzyk agreed that they would need to continue their education after completing their studies at Columbus State in 2017.
Heading west
The two knew that to perfect their musical abilities and find university teaching positions or jobs as performers, they needed to earn doctoral degrees. That is when they learned about the University of Nevada Las Vegas, or UNLV.
UNLV is a public research university that was established in 1957. It serves about 30,400 students. The city of Las Vegas is well-known as a place for people to visit while on vacation, while Nevada is famous for its gaming industry.
Las Vegas has many casinos and large hotels, where some of the most popular entertainers from around the world perform. And there is a saying that expresses the culture of partying there: ‘What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.’
Mzyk admits that he had never heard of UNLV before he began considering doctoral degree programs. Yet he says he was pleased to find that many professors teaching at the school came from well-respected universities.
However, Mzyk says he and Plominksa had a difficult start in Nevada, just as they did in Georgia.
“We didn’t have the best start in Las Vegas, because our bikes were stolen after two weeks, I think, when we moved in. And then our neighbors … below, they were evicted because of some reasons we don’t know really.”
Las Vegas does not have the country’s highest crime rate. But the Federal Bureau of Investigation did report more than 4,900 violent crimes there in 2017. And Mzyk and Plominska say they did feel unsafe at times.
Similar experiences, concerns
Anastasia Motiti shares their concerns. The 23-year-old UNLV student is from Nicosia, the largest city of the island of Cyprus. Growing up, she says, her community was so closely connected that there was little fear of crime. So she felt a little unprepared for what life was like in Las Vegas.
In 2016, Motiti earned a bachelor’s degree at Emporia State University in Emporia, Kansas. Her degree program was in musical performance.
Like Plominska, Motiti plays the flute. She learned about the school through the Fulbright Program, the U.S. government’s main program for international student exchanges.
Motiti says she liked the American method of higher education, which lets students take classes in both their major and other subjects. So she decided to seek a master’s degree at UNLV immediately after completing her bachelor’s degree.
Once Motiti moved to Las Vegas, she says, it took her time to learn to pay close attention to her surroundings in order to stay safe. But she adds that life as a UNLV student soon made it so that she had little time to go anywhere or doing anything outside of schoolwork.
For music students, earning any sort of master’s or doctoral degree means hours and hours of playing one’s instrument, Motiti says. But more than that, she feels that her studies helped expand her knowledge and skills beyond just playing the flute. Now she has experience writing music and leading other performers.
Motiti recalls that one professor showed her kinds of music she had never enjoyed before.
“He introduced me to opera, which for me, now is much better than theater, than movies … because it combines everything, literally. … I was blind to it … and then suddenly I come here and this person just shows me how I want to continue.”
Intense program
Dawid Mzyk and Marta Plominska agree that they now spend much of their week on the grounds of UNLV, especially in the music building. They say that, in a way, it is good for their relationship since they are both studying in such an intense program.
Myzk and Plominska hold positions as teaching assistants at UNLV. They agree that teaching makes them look at the music and their own playing in ways they might not have considered a few years ago. And they say this adds to the list of ways the school helps them reach their goal of being the best musicians they can be.
See all News Updates of the Day
- By VOA News
US is now the most desirable country for international students
That’s according to this year’s Emerging Futures research survey, from education consultant IDP Connect. Other Western countries have slipped due to new visa restrictions and caps on international students. Read a summary of the research from ICEF Monitor. (April 30, 2024)
Pro-Palestinian protesters break through barricades to retake MIT encampment
Pro-Palestinian protesters who had been blocked by police from accessing an encampment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Monday broke through fencing, linked arms and encircled tents that remained there, as Columbia University canceled its university-wide commencement ceremony following weeks of pro-Palestinian protests.
Sam Ihns, a graduate student at MIT studying mechanical engineering and a member of MIT Jews for a Ceasefire, said the group has been at the encampment for the past two weeks and that they were calling for an end to the killing of thousands of people in Gaza.
"Specifically, our encampment is protesting MIT's direct research ties to the Israeli Ministry of Defense," he said.
Protesters also sat in the middle of Massachusetts Avenue, blocking the street during rush hour in the Boston area.
The demonstrations at Columbia have roiled its campus and officials said Monday that while it won't hold it's main ceremony, students will be able to celebrate at a series of smaller, school-based ceremonies this week and next.
The decision comes as universities around the country wrangle with how to handle commencements for students whose high school graduations were derailed by COVID-19 in 2020. Another campus shaken by protests, Emory University, announced Monday that it would move its commencement from its Atlanta campus to a suburban arena. Others, including the University of Michigan, Indiana University and Northeastern, have pulled off ceremonies with few disruptions.
Columbia's decision to cancel its main ceremonies scheduled for May 15 saves its president, Minouche Shafik, from having to deliver a commencement address in the same part of campus where police dismantled a protest encampment last week. The Ivy League school in upper Manhattan said it made the decision after discussions with students.
"Our students emphasized that these smaller-scale, school-based celebrations are most meaningful to them and their families," officials said.
Most of the ceremonies that had been scheduled for the south lawn of the main campus, where encampments were taken down last week, will take place about 8 kilometers (5 miles) north at Columbia's sports complex, officials said.
Speakers at some of Columbia's still-scheduled graduation ceremonies include Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright James Ijames and Dr. Monica Bertagnolli, director of the National Institutes of Health.
Columbia had already canceled in-person classes. More than 200 pro-Palestinian demonstrators who had camped out on Columbia's green or occupied an academic building were arrested in recent weeks.
Similar encampments sprouted up elsewhere as universities struggled with where to draw the line between allowing free expression while maintaining safe and inclusive campuses.
The University of Southern California earlier canceled its main graduation ceremony. Students abandoned their camp at USC on Sunday after being surrounded by police and threatened with arrest.
Other universities have held graduation ceremonies with beefed-up security. The University of Michigan's ceremony was interrupted by chanting a few times Saturday. In Boston on Sunday, some students waved small Palestinian or Israeli flags at Northeastern University's commencement in Fenway Park.
Emory's ceremonies scheduled for May 13 will be held at the GasSouth Arena and Convocation Center in Duluth, almost 20 miles (30 kilometers) northeast of the university's Atlanta campus, President Gregory Fenves said in an open letter.
"Please know that this decision was not taken lightly," Fenves wrote. "It was made in close consultation with the Emory Police Department, security advisors and other agencies — each of which advised against holding commencement events on our campuses."
The 16,000-student university is one of many that has seen repeated protests stemming from the conflict that started Oct. 7 when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking roughly 250 hostages. Student protesters are calling on their schools to divest from companies that do business with Israel or otherwise contribute to the war effort.
Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel launched an offensive in Gaza that has killed more than 34,500 Palestinians, about two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory. Israeli strikes have devastated the enclave and displaced most of its inhabitants.
Hamas on Monday announced its acceptance of an Egyptian-Qatari cease-fire proposal, but Israel said the deal did not meet its "core demands" and that it was pushing ahead with an assault on the southern Gaza town of Rafah.
"Cease-fires are temporary," said Selina Al-Shihabi, a Georgetown University sophomore who was taking part in a protest at George Washington. "There can be a cease-fire, but the U.S. government will continue to arm the Israeli military. We plan to be here until the university divests or until they drag us out of here."
At the University of California, San Diego, police cleared an encampment and arrested more than 64 people, including 40 students.
The University of California, Los Angeles, moved all classes online for the entire week due to ongoing disruptions following the dismantling of an encampment last week. The university police force reported 44 arrests but there were no specific details, UCLA spokesperson Eddie North-Hager said in an email to The Associated Press.
Schools are trying various tactics from appeasement to threats of disciplinary action to get protestors to take down encampments or move to campus areas where demonstrations would be less intrusive.
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago said in a Facebook post Sunday that it offered protesters "amnesty from academic sanction and trespassing charges" if they moved.
"Many protesters left the premises of their own accord after being notified by the police that they were trespassing and subject to arrest," the school said. "Those that remained were arrested after multiple warnings to leave, including some of whom we recognized as SAIC students."
A group of faculty and staff members at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill asked the administration for amnesty for any students who were arrested and suspended during recent protests. UNC Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine said in a media advisory that it would deliver a letter on behalf of more than 500 faculty who support the student activists.
Other universities took a different approach.
Harvard University's interim president, Alan Garber, warned students that those participating in a pro-Palestinian encampment in Harvard Yard could face "involuntary leave." That means they would not be allowed on campus, could lose their student housing and may not be able to take exams, Garber said.
Columbia University cancels main commencement after protests that roiled campus for weeks
Columbia University is canceling its large university-wide commencement ceremony amid ongoing pro-Palestinian protests but will hold smaller school-based ceremonies this week and next, the university announced Monday.
"Based on feedback from our students, we have decided to focus attention on our Class Days and school-level graduation ceremonies, where students are honored individually alongside their peers, and to forego the university-wide ceremony that is scheduled for May 15," Columbia officials said in a statement.
The protests stem from the conflict that started Oct. 7 when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking roughly 250 hostages. Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel launched an offensive in Gaza that has killed more than 34,500 Palestinians, about two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory. Israeli strikes have devastated the enclave and displaced most of its inhabitants.
The University of Southern California earlier canceled its main graduation ceremony while allowing other commencement activities to continue.
- By VOA News
Where Are Pro-Palestinian Campus Protests Happening?
Colleges in the U.S. have been rocked by a wave of campus protests calling for an end to the war in Gaza, and for U.S. colleges to divest from Israel.
The Wall Street Journal’s Steven Russolillo rounds up some of the most important ones. (April 2024)
Pro-Palestinian protests in US could impact 2024 election
Despite the fact that many of their encampments at university campuses have been dismantled, pro-Palestinian demonstrators in the United States are standing their ground. If the protests continue, some analysts say they could have an impact on the 2024 presidential election. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias explains.
