Sabo Center for Languages and Cultures
The Sabo Center for Languages and Cultures (SCLC) supports faculty and students in the Department of Ancient & Modern Languages and Cultures by promoting technology-supported teaching and learning by maintaining a computer lab for classroom use, organizing professional development opportunities and overseeing an inventory of audio-visual resources.
The SCLC is open from 8 AM to 5 PM Monday through Friday but can be reserved for after hour events by members of the JCU community.
About the Center
The Sabo Center for Languages and Cultures consists of three spaces all on the second floor of the O’Malley Center which are all reservable on CourseDog. All three spaces are open during standard University business hours (8:00 AM to 5:00 PM) and are reservable on CourseDog. If you would like to reserve these spaces outside of those hours, please contact sclc@jcu.edu.
The Sabo Center itself, housed in OC 101, is primarily a space to complete academic work. It houses a computer lab with 24 computer workstations and a Solstice Pod ideal for instructors who want to use the space to teach their classes. It also contains flexible furniture which can be arranged in different ways for collaborative work. Moreover, there are also tables where students can bring their own devices to complete projects and print from our new campus printing station. As this space contains educational technology central to student learning, food is not permitted in this space.
The AMLC Multimedia Library in OC 139 is an informal social space which can be reserved by instructors and campus student organizations. It contains an extensive humanities library as well as a theater space where students can view movies related to their coursework or where student organizations can host events. In contrast to OC 101, The AMLC Multimedia Library is a smaller space that is food friendly and one that can safely seat 12 people and is a food friendly space.
Our Collaboration Classroom in OC 112 is both a classroom which can seat 24 people but also serves as a Cultural Activities Center where the SCLC hosts guest speakers and coordinate experiential language learning.
James Nemiroff: Coordinator of the Center for Global Languages and Cultures
Office: O’Malley Center 104
E-mail: jnemiroff@jcu.edu
Phone: 216-397-4729
James Nemiroff received his Ph.D from the University of Chicago in Romance Languages and Literatures with a specialty in 16th and 17th century Spanish literature and culture. He also holds masters degrees in Spanish literature from the University of Chicago and the Spanish National Research Council in Madrid. He is also a proud liberal arts graduate holding a B.A in Spanish from Reed College.
As coordinator of the Center for Global Languages and Cultures (CGLC), he strives to provide support for faculty and students in the Department of Classical and Modern Languages and Cultures by promoting technology-supported teaching and learning, maintaining a computer lab for classroom use, and overseeing a large inventory of books, movies and audio-visual resources. In the future, the CGLC will also seek to promote intercultural understanding and interdisciplinary collaboration by providing a space for student club meetings and organizing professional development workshops for students, faculty and staff. He also served as one of the project managers for the renovation of the CGLC as a collaborative hub for all campus constituencies. The re-opening of the newly renovated CGLC is scheduled for Fall Semester 2023. Furthering both the CGLC’s mission to teach intercultural competence and the University’s mission to promote diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging, Dr. Nemiroff also serves the University mission on a number of committees and task forces including the Cultural Programming Council and the Hillel Campus Climate Initiative Task Force.
In addition to serving as the coordinator of the CGLC, Dr. Nemiroff also teaches courses in the Classical and Modern Languages and Cultures Department in both Spanish literature and culture but also courses in English that complement the mission of the CGLC. In Fall 2023, he will be teaching a course in Business Spanish and he is currently designing a course in English focused on intercultural competence which will be offered in the coming years. In all of his classes, he tries to promote animo, or the ability to make mistakes in a brave and collaborative space. One of the ways in which he achieves this goal in his classroom is by assigning collaborative projects that employ educational technologies ranging from augmented reality posters to virtual reality technologies to collaborative essays written as Wikipedia entries.
In addition to the pedagogical and cultural services we offer, the CGLC also offers training in intercultural competence. If you or your office is interested in our intercultural competence training, please feel free to reach out to Dr. James Nemiroff, Coordinator of the CGLC at jnemiroff@jcu.edu
During Academic Year 2022-2023 we offered training to the following offices on campus.
The Office of Student Engagement
The Center for Student Belonging
The Division of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging
Of particular note is the ongoing intercultural competence training we are offering to students traveling to Spain as part of the GYP-NEXTGEN program, a program financed by the National Science Foundation’s International Experiences for Students Program. This grant opportunity allows students from John Carroll University, Oberlin College and New Mexico State University to engage in science projects abroad in Spain.
