(by Filipe Albessu Narciso | reviewed by Kiara Neves) – November 30th, 2021

USP announces the inauguration of the academic reception office for foreign and domestic institutions and a public space for intercultural exchange: the USP International Intercultural Center. It will be open to undergraduate and graduate students, researchers and professors participating in courses, lectures, and in a variety of international academic activities. The purpose of the designated location is to enhance communication among exchange students, to give greater visibility to the results of various internationalization programs and to enable new actions regarding academic exchange and teaching and research methodologies. Learn more about USP’s International Intercultural Center here.

Diffusion International Center at USP

The University of São Paulo (USP) is opening a new facility for exchange: the USP International Intercultural Center (CII-USP). The new area provides opportunities for intercultural exchange and an academic reception office for foreign and national institutions and peers. Located at the Centro de Difusão Internacional, translated as the International Diffusion Center, the new center can be found on the university main campus, the University City Campus Armando de Salles Oliveira. 

Opening in November 2021, the center will promote productive interchange between the university community and its international partners through a series of mutually planned activities. The CII-USP is conceived as a hub of attraction for educational and academic affinities, whether national or international. 

Korea Corner

The site will be open to undergraduate and graduate students, researchers, and professors, regardless of nationality. These members of the USP community will participate in courses, lectures and a variety of international academic events.

The center aims to be an interactive intercultural locus open to dynamics related to international ventures  and education technologies. It is devised to be a location for reading, cultural activities, and disclosure of opportunities offered by partner universities, consulates and university-companies relations. The facility’s design was inspired by the Visitor Centers at the Harvard, Stanford and Davis Universities.

The intercultural exchange center comprises a large room intended for a series of events, such as meetings of the USP iFriends program and workshops directed to exchange students. It is also planned to host exhibitions, interactive cultural events, and informational workshops about exchange programs with USP’s many partner institutions in Brazil and abroad. Additionally, the International Intercultural Center is open for casual interactions, such as spontaneous encounters for sharing experiences acquired at USP or foreign universities and independent creative workshops supervised by Aucani and proposed by exchange students. These workshops are thought to help participants develop oral communication skills in foreign languages and Brazilian Portuguese.

Inauguration

The International Intercultural Center houses an office for welcoming foreign students and delegations that visit USP annually. The office also offers information about exchange programs procedures and support in obtaining the necessary documents from the Brazilian Federal Police. It is conceived to ease the path of visitors by providing them with room where they are able engage in academic and social activities, such as delivering presentations about their universities, besides offering them support with formalities at their arrival and during their stay. 

USP’s new International Intercultural Center aims at boosting new forms of action through gathering students and professors with a shared interest in academic exchange and methodologies of education and research. It is envisaged as a resource to raise the potential of extended communication between exchange students, either “incoming” or “outgoing”, for having a shared space for encounters, and also give more visibility to the results of numerous internationalization programs.