WASHINGTON DC - The Joint National Committee for Languages and the National Council for Languages and International Studies (JNCL-NCLIS) is pleased to announce the addition of Sara Gace, Communications and Policy Intern, to the JNCL-NCLIS team in Washington, D.C.
Gace is a rising senior at American University studying Anthropology, Transcultural Literature, and Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and looks forward to applying her academics to JNCL-NCLIS’s work. As a heritage Albanian speaker, she understands the importance of bilingual education as a means to maintain native and heritage language skills. As a result, Gace intends to advocate for accessible and comprehensive bilingual education in K-12 classrooms while preserving and celebrating the cultural importance of multilingualism.
As the Communications and Policy Intern, Gace assists Alissa Rutkowski, the Director of Strategic Initiatives, in researching and creating content pertaining to language education, industry, and policy. Through this internship, Gace will also work with the JNCL-NCLIS team to improve social media interaction, report education policy news into accessible blog posts for the public, help write weekly and monthly newsletters, and programming support for our upcoming Language Advocacy Day.
“Language has such intricate ties to an individual's unique understanding of identity and cultural knowledge, and there is so much value in celebrating multilingualism specifically within the melting pot that is the United States,” Gace writes. “I am thrilled to have the opportunity to work with JNCL-NCLIS and explore how advocacy for language policy can have an impact on the micro level.”
At American University, Gace has worked in various positions relating to bilingual education, media accessibility, and literature preservation. While volunteering for the Washington English Center, she has worked hands-on in the classroom teaching adult English learners. She also headed multiple social media campaigns, both in her time interning in Congressional offices and while working as the Media and Technology Assistant at her university’s library. During her semester abroad in Madrid, she worked with local archival organizations to digitize preserved records of oral histories to be available for the community. In all of her past, present, and future work, Gace is committed to making language and knowledge resources accessible for all who may need or want them.
In her final semester, Gace will focus her capstone project on the ways in which public libraries serve as cornerstone pieces of communities by providing public resources and language education, ultimately acting as a key tool for radical care. She is passionate about the power of accessible shared knowledge in communities and is excited to continue supporting work which aims to remove language as a barrier to accessing this communal knowledge. She is fluent in English and Albanian and studies Spanish as her third language. Gace has applied for a Fulbright Scholarship to Albania for the 2023-2024 cycle and hopes to further her passions there in the future.
_______________________________ About JNCL-NCLIS: Established in 1972, the Joint National Committee for Languages (JNCL) and the National Council for Languages and International Studies (NCLIS) unites a national network of leading organizations and businesses comprised of over 300,000 language professionals to advocate for equitable language learning opportunities. Our mission is to ensure that Americans have the opportunity to learn English and at least one other language. Contact: info@languagepolicy.org