Thursday kicked-off the beginning of this year’s First Thursday Global Get Together’s and was held at the Wheatley Center.  Once a month, the event features a selection of international dishes reflecting a certain theme chosen by the host. The Global Get Together is for domestic students, international students and faculty to socialize and meet new people from all over campus.

Helena Vanhala, the former director of the Center of Global Engagement (CGE), was honored for taking over as department head of media arts. Vanhala was given a special award from CGE as a reminder of her time spent in the office.  The menu of food was from Vanhala’s native country Finland, and included Finnish items from meatballs to blueberry pie.

Vanhala is looking forward to working with her colleagues in the department and her students.

“I’m still learning the job, so every day is a new experience, just like in any job…so I’m looking forward to that,” said Vanhala.

Professor and Rooney Scholar Coordinator, Jim Vincent also presented the two visiting Rooney Scholars. Daniel Silke, Political Analyst and Keynote speaker from South Africa and Victor Khroul, Associate Professor of Journalism at Lomonosov Moscow State University in Russia. Both scholars will be giving public lectures and visiting classrooms during their stay at Robert Morris.

  “Global Engagement is one of the six core values of Robert Morris. Our students are going to be working in a global world. Many of our students have not had the opportunity to travel, so the Rooney’s by providing funding for this bring a scholar on campus not only to lecture but to meet students,” said Vincent.

Khroul is the full-time Rooney Scholar for the semester and is currently staying in the Rooney house in Colonial Village. There will be an open house in the Rooney house Sept. 17 and a question and answer session on Nov. 4.

At the end of Sept. two art scholars and two or three students will be coming to RMU from Cyprus and will be staying for two weeks.