A new academic year means new faces! The fall 2025 semester is fully underway, featuring (mostly) new students, and a new Graduate Student Professional working with us at the Applied Language Institute. Meet Cheni, who has adapted to the environment of the ALI quickly and brought new ideas and an eagerness to her role! We are lucky to have her with us this year.
Here at the Applied Language Institute, our students hail from places all around the globe! In this case, Cheni is also an international student alongside being a part of our staff. Cheni is from Myanmar, and identifies as Karen—one of many ethnic groups in the country. Cheni is multilingual, speaking Karen, Burmese (the national language of Myanmar), English, and a little bit of Korean (as a hobby)! She let us know that this benefits her in watching her favorite tv shows—but we know it also benefits the environment of the ALI and will benefit her career.
Cheni is new to our department, but not to UMKC nor Kansas City. She is an English MFA student in the Creative Writing & Media Arts program, specializing in screenwriting. She hopes to build a career in writing.
In the meantime, she will be working with our department and is looking forward to the connections she will make with students from different cultures and backgrounds. Cheni is excited to gain more experience of working in an office environment and hearing our students stories (and sharing them with our community)!
Cheni will be working on various tasks and projects with our department—such as helping coordinate service learning projects and student activities, as well as creating social media campaigns and posts. We are thrilled to have her fresh ideas and perspective on board with us!
On our social media pages, you can see Cheni’s biggest social media campaign, and the ALI’s first collaborative video with the International Student Association Office, titled “Mukbang Minutes.” In these, Cheni interviews international students across campus while trying some of their favorite snacks from their home countries. This project has been led by Cheni and an ISAO staff member, and they are so fun and lively! Stay tuned for upcoming videos.
Watch Mukbang Minutes here: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DQZzBvkEZtu/
Cheni loves the atmosphere of Kansas City and how it is a blend of a modern and classic city. She enjoys visiting new restaurants around the area, and one of her favorites is Nguyen, a Vietnamese restaurant in the River Market area. Cheni also hopes to attend a performance of the Kansas City symphony soon.
Outside of work and academics, Cheni enjoys cooking while listening to true crime podcasts, followed by eating her creations while watching Korean dramas or American sitcoms, like Young Sheldon and The Middle.
We are fortunate to have Cheni on our team and hope to learn from her as she does from us. Here’s to a new semester and a new staff member!
We’ve wasted no time this semester, and both Cheni and our Student Support Specialist, Chelsey, have been hard at work arranging student activities for our students to acclimate to life at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
The semester began with a lunch at Buffalo State Pizza, where our students and staff connected over shared pies!
On September 27th, the annual Korean American Society’s Arirang Festival also took place on our Volker campus. It was an honor to host the event again, and experience all the culture and performances. On the schedule of events were Korean culture, language and dance workshops, traditional dances and ceremonies, taekwondo demonstrations, and even a Buldak Ramen eating challenge! Outside there were food trucks and inside there were vendors from the area.
The festival this year was especially well attended and bustling with enthusiastic energy. It is always wonderful when a sub-sect of a culture that makes up Kansas City’s community of residents is shared and celebrated with the metro.
Korean Americans have a strong presence in Kansas City, and we wholeheartedly appreciate the opportunity to collaborate with the Korean American Society of Kansas City every year.
Watch the recap video online:
Kansas City is also in the process of establishing a Sister City relationship with Jeonju, South Korea, which you can read more about here. So, any opportunity to share the culture of a potential partnership is inspiring.
We will see you again, same time, next year!
We are trying to spend time outdoors in Kansas City before winter comes rushing in—so our instructor Kate’s split level one/two class spent one brisk October morning planting trees on campus with the Student Environmental Coalition. Not only was it great opportunity for them to practice their English with domestic students, but also a learning opportunity about arboriculture and what campus facilities does to make our campus look beautiful.
That morning, students split off into two groups, led by student volunteers in the coalition, many who had experience planting and digging up holes to plant in. Our students assisted them in properly planting native-to-Missouri baby trees. They got to get their hands dirty and worked together.
We look forward to the various upcoming activities and service learning we have planned for the rest of the semester, and welcoming the holiday breaks.
Applied Language Institute: The Blog 
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