BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Director of the Prague Summer Study Abroad Program and the Film Studies Certificate Program.
Barbara S. Weitz has been an instructor in the English Department at Florida International University since 1983 and spent another earlier year as adjunct in the English Dept. and as Asst. Director of what has become the FIU English Language Institute as well as what has become the FIU Center for Excellence in Writing. She has been taking students to the Czech Republic to study for 6 weeks for the past 21 years. Included in this program has been a Czech Cinema course that includes participation in the prestigious, A-list Karlovy Vary International Film Festival held every summer. In addition to FIU students, participants in these Programs have been from other universities in the U.S., as well as from the local community. She served as an advisor in the creation of what is today the Office of Education Abroad at FIU. In addition, she is a member of the FIU European Studies Faculty and the Women’s Studies Faculty and taught for 3 years in the inaugural years of the FIU Honors Program (today Honors College). In addition, she has been a member of the 3-person, three-member campus committee for this year’s Fulbright program for US students for the past 3 years.
Prof. Weitz’ interest in using cinema as a text for critical analysis led her first to incorporate film studies in her composition classes and later, since there was such a demand among students, for her to develop and teach film studies courses as part of the English Dept. course offerings. She has been Director of the FIU Film Studies Certificate Program, the largest certificate program at FIU with over 100 participants, since 1990. She is also a selection committee screener, heads the Education Advisory Committee, and has been a Jury member for the Miami International Film Festival for many years. She has been a member of the Program Committee for the new Coral Gables Art Cinema. Over the past many years at FIU, she has been involved in film-related and non-film related activities too numerous to mention.
