My experience as Center for “Race” Visiting Research Scholar by Marcelo da Silva Leite (Methodist University of Piracicaba, UNIMEP, Brazil)

My experience as a Visiting Research scholar at the Center of “Race,” Culture and Social Justice at Hofstra University was most productive and enjoyable. It gave me the opportunity to meet people of excellence and being able to learn from their views regarding politics, culture, society, social justice, race, education, internationalization of higher education, and more. I was impressed by the hospitality that my wife and I received. We had the opportunity to meet with administrators, faculty members and students and all of them were highly responsive and engaging. There are places where you go and you immediately feel like being at home, this is how I felt in the days I spent at Hofstra University during my Visiting Research Scholarship, from September 26 to October 9, 2019.

It was a great pleasure going to classes to teach and interact with the professors and students. I held presentations in three courses that are part of the Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and I spoke about politics in Latin America more generally and on current state of affairs in Brazil more immediately. I also presented on the Brazilian system of education inthree courses that are part of the Education program, one of them was a course for Masters students, and all of them were teachers of K to 12 grades, which provided a most gratifying experience for the exchange of ideas that ensued. 

Finally, I gave a public lecture  in a large auditorium; at first I was a little bit anxious, especially when I saw that the room began to get full of people, but after I started delivering my lecture and noticed the interest of the audience in the topic, I felt more comfortable and became at ease with the situation. There was a part of the lecture that was opened to questions, and I was pleasantly surprised but the number of people that asked questions and showed knowledge about the current political landscape in Brazil. I felt special that day with the respect and interest in my talk by the public.

The primary reason I went to Hofstra as a Visiting Research Scholar was to conduct my doctorate fieldwork research, on the Internationalization of Higher Education in the United States. I received, great support for my project from the Center for “Race”, to contact people for me to interview and to provide me with a network of faculty, students and administrators to carry out my project. I enjoyed talking to each person I met, and learned a great deal from them regarding Hofstra’s internationalization efforts. 

I would like to thank Hofstra University for my visit, the Center of “Race,” Culture and Social Justice and its directors for the warm welcome they provided, and Dr. Tomeka Robinson for extending me the invitation and for making it all possible.