News • Monday, February 17, 2014
THE DAILY WILDCAT •3
Learning English tricky for foreign students BY LAUREN SHORES
Arizona Sonora News Service
There’s no way around it: English is hard to learn. It’s really, really tough. It’s often illogical non-phonetic spelling patterns, the tendency to use conjunctions and the fact that words like “hard” and “tough” can have the same meaning in the above context, but not in others, make it difficult for non-native speakers to even understand the first sentence of this article. For example, though Gina Martinez is nearly fluent in English, she does admit that she struggles a little with the prepositions. “When people say things like ‘on the bus,’ it’s still confusing to me,” said Martinez, a psychology student from Bogotá, Colombia. The UA now has nearly 3,500 international students enrolled from about 140 countries. Like American students, degree-seeking international students are required to take two 100-level English courses, normally
English 107 and English 108 — the equivalent of English 101 and 102, but for non-native speakers. Two-thirds of the international students admitted in the spring 2014 semester were eligible to sign up for English 107. However, the other third placed into English 107A, a class created to help students who have a shakier grasp on the English language. This semester is first in two years to have more than 16 percent of first-semester international students enroll in 107A. When so many students need extra assistance to understand the language used in all of their university classes, it raises the question: Is the language barrier too much for these students? “The language barrier is always a concern,” said Nick Ferdinand, associate director of the Center for English as a Second Language. “However, the number of 107A students responds to the demand of international students. Ideally, we want 10 percent of the student population to be international, and we’re a little below 10 percent now.” Despite the roadblocks in learning our bear
of a language, international students continue to flock to America and UA, and we will continue to accept them with open arms. As it turns out, we need them. “There aren’t as many undergrads from the United States coming in because the natality rate has gone down,” Ferdinand said. “The United States education system has been expanding for decades, and has reached its capacity for domestic students. The number of students at the university will decline if we don’t recruit internationally.” It’s a mutually beneficial situation, then, for the UA and international students. The university gets higher enrollment and diversity, and international students get educated at one of the top 100 universities in the world. “U of A is in the 50th of the top 100 universities worldwide,” Ferdinand said. “Some of these students, especially from China, save for generations of families just so one child can go to college.” REBECCA MARIE SASNETT/THE DAILY WILDCAT
STUDY BUDDY
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for really promoting brain health and mental health in general,” Pessarakli said. Johansen said that he would like students to take the supplement daily as a healthier alternative to other substances they might use to help them study. “There’s a lot of stuff that’s out there that’s really bad for you. … Look at diet drinks with things like Splenda, which is a known carcinogen, which causes cancer,” Johansen said. “We really want to be an alternative to those options and give a healthy way to improve memory, concentration and focus.” The company wants to continue marketing in a grassroots manner, Pessarakli said, and is planning to partner with sororities and fraternities to boost advertising for its product. Greek Life is great for the company’s marketing strategy, Johansen said, because Greek Life accounts for approximately 10 percent of UA’s population and is an organization that requires members to maintain a minimum GPA to stay active on campus. “There’s a lot of stuff that goes on in Greek Life that trickles throughout the rest of the campus, so even if you’re not affiliated with Greek Life, you’re still going to know what’s going on,” Johansen said. Pessarakli said there are no negative side effects of Study Buddy, making it a healthy but still effective way to study. “At the end of the day, it’s all about improving health and wellbeing,” Johansen said.
on. You can’t really have that and congratulate one and look down on the other.” Alexandra Brooks, a mechanical engineering freshman, said people should personally know when they’ve had too many partners based on whether they start building a bad reputation because of how many people they’ve had sex with. Women seem to be talked about more and seem to care more about their reputation, Brooks added. “A lot of the time, you hear about a woman being a slut,” Brooks said. “I occasionally hear a man be called a man whore. … The couple [of] guys that I’ve known who’ve been called that … just treat it kind of like a trophy.” This double standard creates cultural problems that go beyond how many partners people have had sex with, said Mari Galup, a Ph.D. student in gender and women’s studies who teaches Women and Western Culture. People often make assumptions that someone has a lot of sexual partners because of the way they dress or how they act, she added. These assumptions can also lead to value judgment or justifications as to why women are sexually abused or harassed, Galup said.
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NEWS
Correction
TYLER BAKER/THE DAILY WILDCAT
UA GRADUATES TYLER JOHANSEN and Dr. Mahdi Pessarakli created the nutritional supplement Study Buddy. Study Buddy is designed to help students focus and retain more information when studying.
In the article “UA honors black history“ (Katya Mendoza, Feb. 13) the statement that the dinner and dialogue series was with the Arizona Students’ Association was false. The series is with the African American Students’ Association. The Daily Wildcat regrets the error.
NEW POSITION FROM PAGE 1
unique experience with the teaching side of medicine, as well as the practice of medicine.” Goldschmid’s salary is about $550,000, most of which is funded by the UA Health Network. Goldschmid, who is certified in internal medicine and gastroenterology, has been working with the UA College of Medicine — Tucson since 2000, when he was hired to establish a gastroenterology service/endoscopy lab. He became chairman of the UA Department of Medicine in 2006, and in 2008 he took a position as interim dean at the UA College of Medicine — Tucson. The University of Arizona Medical Center the and UA Health Network are working to recruit various positions along with a new dean for the college — including a new chair for the department of surgery, a chair for the department of medicine and a director for the UA Cancer Center. Recruiting surgeons and physicians to fill these positions takes several months, according to Katie Riley, director of media relations and corporate communications at UAHN and AHSC Office of Public Affairs. “Experienced surgeons and physicians of the high caliber we are seeking are uncommon,” Riley said in an email statement. “UA and
UAHN are absolutely committed to providing core transplant services. Strengthening these services in 2014 through strategic recruiting of experienced physicians and surgeons is a top priority.” Garcia said AHSC will have recruited three to four administrators within the next six months to fill some of the major positions that are currently open. Despite Goldschmid being in the middle of a pending lawsuit, the new appointment has nothing to do with the lawsuit against the College of Medicine — Tucson, according to Humphrey. Dr. Rainer Gruessner, former chairman of the department of surgery, filed a lawsuit in mid-November after being suspended with pay. Goldschmid called Gruessner via Skype in July 2013 asking him to step down from his position as chair of the department of surgery, citing a “record of poor performance,” according to court records. According to court documents, an evaluation committee within the College of Medicine asked Gruessner for input on the state of the college under Goldschmid’s leadership. Gruessner told the committee in April he was concerned about the dean’s leadership, and, according to the 191page lawsuit, he believes the dean found out about what he told the committee.
“Women are seen as losing their reputation when they sleep with a lot of people,” Galup said, “and men are seen as gaining a good reputation. They get built up by that.” Ellie Wood, a gender and women’s studies graduate student and a teaching assistant for the course Sex, Health and AIDS, said how much people actually care about their reputation depends on how they were brought up and how they were educated. “There are people who, very much so, were brought up with open-mindedness, as well as their education, and realize that someone’s sexual activity doesn’t define their morals,” Wood said. “They’re not going to give you trouble for having more than one sexual partner in your life.” The number of sexual partners people have shouldn’t matter as long as people are following and supporting their personal beliefs, said Mark Fleckenstein, a systems engineering sophomore. Being in love with a sexual partner is also an important factor, he added. “I think if you’re genuinely in love, I think that’s a good enough reason,” Fleckenstein said. “But I think it’s different for everyone.”
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The lawsuit claims he was suspended without cause, and he is not seeking payment but instead would like to get his job back and restore his reputation. Goldschmid declined to comment on the pending lawsuit and on his new positions. Garcia also said Goldschmid’s administrative move is unrelated to the lawsuit, and the new positions were created to improve the College of Medicine’s future. Goldschmid was appointed to the positions because of his understanding of the college’s clinical mission. “We’ve been talking about this realignment in our leadership positions for quite some time,” Garcia said. “The Gruessner search was started in December. I think [Goldschmid] also understands that in his new leadership position, he’ll be able to influence how the resources for the College of Medicine get generated and maybe play a big role in generating additional resources for us to be able to grow the College of Medicine. So, I’d say there’s no link to any of the issues going on with the previous chairman of surgery.” COURTESY OF KATIE RILEY
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DR. STEVE GOLDSCHMID, current dean of the College of Medicine — Tucson, has been appointed to two new positions within UA health services. Dr. Joe G.N. Garcia will serve as interim dean of the College of Medicine.
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