AUK’s CAPA initiated its first CAPAx event!
Duhok, Kurdistan Region – August 14th, 2022 – AUK’s Center for Academic and Professional Advancement (CAPA) initiated its first ever CAPAx event to provide a venue for AUK students to speak about contemporary topics of interest to the campus community. The participating students are enrolled in English proficiency courses in preparation for their academic courses within AUK’s bachelor’s programs. The event was held in the Auditorium of the Mustafa Barzani Building and attended by an audience of about 60 members of the campus community and parents of the participants.
This inaugural CAPAx event had a total of nine speeches on global issues and local topics of concern. Topics included “Women Empowerment,” “Justice”, “The Education System”, “Unemployment”, and “The Butterfly Effect”. Each presentation was assessed according to a set of standards that included speaking skills, content, and ability to respond to questions posed by the judges. The jury consisted of the President of AUK, Dr Randall Rhodes, Director of CAPA, Loucine Hayes, HR Director, Zaina Aladham, and AUK’s Legal Counsel, Dr. Sarmad Majeed. The event’s top prize was awarded to the team presenting on “Unemployment”, Sada Salim Darwish and Sereen Hadi Khudher.
Such activities can enhance CAPA students’ communication in English, public speaking skills, creativity, confidence, and critical thinking. Co-curricular events also encourage students to take ownership over their own learning and potentially organize and lead future events on their own.
Quotes from the jurors and participants…
President of AUK Dr. Randall Rhodes – “In our CAPA, students learn more than English language skills. The new curriculum provides opportunities for students to develop their soft skills to a level of proficiency, as demonstrated in today’s presentations.”
CAPA Director Loucine Hayes – “CAPAx is a fun platform for AUK CAPA students and community at large to get together and discuss compelling topics and issues while developing public speaking skills and improving English language proficiency. It unites all educational programs together and all ages, from young learners to adults creating a vibrant community of learners who apply their knowledge in real-life setting. As we witnessed today, the topics were very pertinent and important to the 21st century from women empowerment to healthy lifestyle, from justice to unemployment and even the butterfly effect and more. Students did very well, and it was truly a hard job to choose the best presenters. I am so much looking forward to the next event.”
Jarjis Jarjis (Professional Program Coordinator) Ahmad Jomaa (Language Coordinator) & Ammar Mahmoud (Capacity Building Manager) – “CAPAx is a new tradition that CAPA is adopting. This unique experience motivates students to freely express their ideas and talk about topics they are passionate about in front of large audiences. It is part of our mission to build confident public speakers, and CAPAx is one of the components that contributes to the whole process”.
CAPAx Winners – “Thanks to our teachers who organized this event because it was a new experience that developed our skills. We met new people. It was also the first time we presented in front of a large number of people, and of course we felt so glad that the judges liked our talk. It was about unemployment, which is a world topic not just in our country, but in the whole world. To sum up, I would like to thank all the students for attending this event and making it great”.
