By Nicole Noce
Elm Staff Writer
Located in the French city of Grenoble, Washington College offers a tuition exchange program with Université Grenoble Alpes for students wishing to study abroad and both practice and enhance their French language skills.
For those who would like to learn or improve on their French language skills while on WC’s campus, the recently reactivated French Culture Club offers an opportunity to do so.
The French Culture Club is open to all students, regardless of their knowledge or ability with French language and culture.
The group has broadened their horizons to include French culture outside of Europe.
“The French Culture Club is a rebranding of the French Club and it’s really all about getting the WC community interested in francophone culture, so France but also countries in the Caribbean and Africa like Haiti, Morocco, and Algeria,” junior club member Maria Betancur-Cardona said.
Acting president of the club Felicia Attor, junior, hopes that the French Culture Club will give students at WC the opportunity to learn about cultures they may not typically encounter.
“The goals of the club are to foster and create awareness of francophone cultures on campus and to engage in the promotion of global citizenship,” Attor said.
In the future, the French Culture Club plans on expanding the campus’s cultural awareness through an annual language fair. They would like to collaborate with the other language and culture clubs on campus to hold the language fair.
Along with increasing cultural awareness, the group’s philanthropy is centered around helping refugees and their families.
“We would like to create awareness and advocacy for refugee and immigrant human right issues around the world and start a bi-annual donation drive for refugees in need,” Attor said.
Some events French Culture Club hope to hold this semester are a bi-annual crepes/Nutella and macaron fundraiser, movie nights, coffee hours, and a raclette and trivia night. The club also plans on taking a trip to a Moroccan restaurant.
“For future semesters, we’ll have events like music nights, cheese tastings and trips to restaurants in Philly and D.C. It’s going to be a lot of fun and a lot of new food,” Betancur-Cardona said.
Meetings are held Thursdays from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. in Goldstein 207 for any students who are interested in joining or stopping by to learn more about francophone cultures.