Benedictine Celebrates International Education Week, Hosts Acclaimed Playwright

Benedictine University will celebrate its diverse student and community population and the benefits of an international education with a series of film screenings, games, buffets and other festivities during International Education Week November 12-17.

The public is invited to a presentation of filmmaker and playwright Jamil Khoury’s latest work in progress, “Mosque Alert,” from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. on Wednesday, November 14, in the Presentation Room of the Krasa Student Center.

The play, “Mosque Alert,” explores the resistance to the building of mosques in communities across the United States with a specific focus on two families, one Muslim and the other Christian, living in Naperville. At the event, Khoury will also give a presentation addressing questions of religious pluralism, Islamophobia and civil rights, drawing upon local, national and international contexts. As the founding artistic director of Silk Road Rising in Chicago, Khoury’s work focuses on Middle Eastern themes and questions of diaspora, the movement or migration of people away from an established or ancestral homeland. His work reflects an interest in the intersections of culture, national identity, sexuality and class.

Khoury earned a master’s degree in Religious Studies from the University of Chicago Divinity School and a bachelor’s degree in International Relations from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. He is a Kellogg Executive Scholar at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and has developed courses in Middle Eastern Studies for the University of Chicago Graham School of General Studies. He has lectured widely on Arab-American affairs.

International Education Week is a joint initiative of the U.S. Department of State and U.S. Department of Education to promote programs that prepare Americans for a global environment and attract future leaders from abroad to study, learn and exchange experiences in the United States.

Benedictine University, whose students come from 50 states and 15 foreign countries and represent diverse ethnic and religious groups, including Catholics, Christians, Muslims and Hindus, has been celebrating International Education Week since 2005.

Each year, Benedictine students travel to more than 30 countries through the University’s Office of International Programs and Services, and international students from numerous countries visit Benedictine to further their education.

And on the Lisle campus, students, faculty and staff are working to leverage the diversity of the University community, integrating more opportunities for intercultural exchange to better communicate and understand each other.

The exchanges are critical for preparing the next generation of leaders to recognize and appreciate the diverse views and opinions of others in order to work more efficiently and collaboratively.

International Education Week is celebrated in more than 100 countries around the world.

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Benedictine University is an independent Roman Catholic institution located in Lisle, Illinois just 25 miles west of Chicago. Founded in 1887, Benedictine provides 56 undergraduate majors, 15 graduate and four doctorate programs. Benedictine University is ranked No.1 among the country’s fastest-growing campuses between 2000-2010 in the Chronicle of Higher Education’s list of private nonprofit research institutions, and Forbes magazine named Benedictine among “America’s Top Colleges” for the second consecutive year in 2012. Benedictine University’s Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.) program is listed by Crain’s Chicago Business as the fifth largest in the Chicago area in 2012.