Meshesha Make is bringing Amharic to Pitt students

Meshesha Make became a member of the Pitt family in 2017 when the University Center for International Studies’ (UCIS) Center for African Studies (CAS) travelled to Ethiopia as part of a Fulbright Hays Group Projects Abroad grant.

Make, a professor of English Language and Indigenous Studies, served as the project director for host site Wolaita Sodo University, where CAS invited 18 teachers and graduate students to spend a month working collaboratively with Ethiopian educators. Together, teachers from the United States and Ethiopia created Teach Africa, a curriculum designed to show students a nuanced portrait of the country, culture, and customs of Ethiopia.

Five years of scholarly, cross-cultural partnership later, the School of Education’s Maureen Porter and CAS’s Anna-Maria Karnes greeted Make at the Pittsburgh airport on to say salam — hello in Amharic — and welcome him to Pittsburgh. Make will be a guest lecturer in the steel city for the 2022-23 academic year, teaching Amharic to Pitt students.

Make’s visit is particularly timely, given the prestigious, competitive U.S. Department of Education Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) fellowships recently awarded to CAS for the next four academic years. FLAS grants will directly support undergraduate and graduate students who seek to study less-commonly taught languages, which includes Amharic. For the first time ever, CAS was also designated as a National Resource Center (NRC) and funded accordingly, which will further support programming to teach students Amharic and other African languages.

CAS Interim Director Catherine Koverola said, “This funding is a game-changer for the Center for African Studies. It will allow us to deepen and expand our programming, continue forming partnerships with African scholars like Dr. Make, and position Pitt as a leader in African Studies.”

CAS plans to continue forming partnerships around the world with two Fulbright Hays projects that will be launched in summer of 2023 for current and future educators. One group will be travelling to Tanzania, the other to Uganda and Kenya.

Students interested in taking an Amharic course with Make, joining a Fulbright Hays trip or engaging in other global experiences are encouraged to contact CAS advisor Anna-Maria Karnes (awk19 [at] pitt.edu) for more information. Faculty and staff interested in partnerships with Make can get in touch with him directly (mmm352 [at] pitt.edu).

— Maggie Grey McDonald