The graduates, Alberto Mederos and Jany Carballo, completed Level 6, the highest level of classes offered at IEP. They received graduation certificates and stoles emblazoned with the flags of both their home country, Cuba, and the United States, along with hugs from their instructors. Each of the two graduates spoke during the ceremony.

The ceremony was followed by a potluck meal held in EMU’s Roselawn Building.

Mederos thanked his teachers for boosting his confidence, pushing him forward, and never letting him give up.

“Thank you so much for preparing us for life in this new country, the United States of America, where learning English is a vital necessity,” he said.

He shared a few words of advice for fellow students still in the program. “Never give up and keep pushing,” he said. “With resilience, determination, and effort, you can turn your own dreams into reality.”

Carballo credited her IEP instructors with believing in her, supporting her, and helping her regain motivation and self-confidence.

“This program is the best place to start when you are an immigrant learning a new language,” she said. “You made me feel safe, supported, and as part of the family.”

The path wasn’t easy, she said, with ups and downs and moments when she felt like giving up. But with the IEP’s help, she faced her fears and reached her first goal: building a foundation in English.

“I feel confident knocking on any door and looking for new opportunities,” she said. “Thank you for being my stepping stone to the next level of my life.”

In his address to the graduates, their families and friends, and others gathered for the ceremony, IEP Director Jeremy Samsoe reflected on the idiom “going back to square one.”

“It means to go back to the beginning of something,” he said, and oftentimes, the phrase is associated with some kind of failure. “Maybe you failed at a task, failed at a job, and now you must go back to square one.”

“For many of you here, being in a new country and starting a new life can feel a bit like being at square one—that you are completely starting over,” Samsoe said. “I like to remind students that you are not truly starting at square one. You are starting many new things, but you also bring with you many things: your language, your culture, your expertise.”

“For both of you, Jany and Alberto, this is like moving one more square,” he said. “It’s not the end of your education or your language learning, but it is a step forward. It is an accomplishment, one among many, that you will have in your life.”

The ceremony also included remarks from Harrisonburg Councilman Nasser Alsaadun MA ’17 (education).

The Iraqi-born educator, who came to the United States in 2008, became the first refugee councilmember in the city’s history when he was elected in the fall of 2024. He repeated something he’s often said—that IEP is the best program of its kind from Winchester to Charlottesville—and expressed deep gratitude for its impact on refugees and immigrants in the community.

“It does much more than teach English,” he said. “It opens doors, builds confidence, and creates opportunities.”

Alsaadun said he’s personally witnessed incredible journeys through the program. “I have seen students arrive with little or no English and, through hard work and determination, go on to pursue graduate degrees,” he said. “That kind of growth is inspiring. It shows resilience, talent, and a strong commitment to success.”

About the Intensive English Program

EMU’s Intensive English Program (IEP) helps English language learners from all around the world find their voice and build a better life for themselves. In a typical semester, IEP has 60 to 80 students representing 15 to 20 different countries. 

For more info about EMU’s Intensive English Program, visit .

“The transportation systems and traffic in Guatemala City are terrible, and any Guatemalan will tell you that,” said student Eli Ours, recounting his experiences from a spring intercultural trip to the Central American country. “It’s crowded, it’s hot, you’re often standing with an armpit in your face, you’re inhaling black diesel fumes, and it can take an hour to go five miles. While living with host families for eight weeks, myself along with the others experienced this on a daily basis while commuting to Spanish classes.”

“Over half of the group had an hour-and-a-half bus ride each way, which meant a total of at least three hours of bus time every day,” he said. “But again, remember, this is the reality for many Guatemalans.”

As the members of his intercultural group grew more comfortable with their commutes, they began competing to see who could get to school or home the quickest. 

“This led to things like sprinting to catch a bus, getting on the wrong bus, or getting off the bus to walk the last mile home,” Ours said.

Ours, along with 16 other EMU students, shared stories from their semester-long intercultural trip to Guatemala and Cuba during Convocation on Wednesday morning. They returned to the U.S. and to campus this week with a deeper understanding of trauma awareness and resilience and a spirited desire to share about the lives of those they encountered on their trip.

The students lived with host families in Guatemala City for eight weeks. Each morning, said student Kate Krabill, they attended four hours of Spanish classes with an afternoon activity that helped them understand the rich history and culture of Guatemala. 

“In class, we read books, cooked traditional Guatemalan foods, sang Spanish songs and played games of memory,” Krabill said.

The group also spent five weeks traveling to other parts of the country. They spent the last two weeks of the semester in Cuba, splitting time between Havana and three other towns: Cienaga de Zapata, Santa Clara and Varadero. They were led by group leaders Elaine Zook Barge and Nathan Barge.

Miranda Beidler, who said a highlight of her trip was the time spent with host families, shared a poem she wrote for them:

“…I found a home in rice and beans and tortillas, dogs barking around the clock, chickens waking me up, bucket showers, talks on the patio, laughing at the dinner table, and the sounds of La Brigada. … Thank you for expanding my world, for patiently listening to my Spanish, for teaching me your culture, for your open hearts, and most of all, for showing me to love and to be loved in ways that I never could have imagined.”

Throughout the semester, students learned about the role and history of religion in the two countries. From witnessing a Mayan ceremony in a cave to experiencing the bustling streets of Antigua Guatemala during Holy Week, as Allysen Welty Peachey shared, they learned about how deeply rooted religion is in society.

Students in the group spoke about Guatemala’s incredible natural beauty — they climbed a volcano, explored the ancient Mayan city of Tikal and visited a lush cloud forest — as well as its destruction and exploitation. They talked about the access to education and health care in the two countries and the difficulty in obtaining medication in Cuba due to the U.S. embargo against it. And, students reflected on the impact of the tourism industry and migration on Guatemala and Cuba.  

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Joshua Stucky spoke about the United States’ involvement in both countries. In 1954, the CIA successfully carried out a plot in Guatemala to overthrow the democratically elected President Jacobo Árbenz, who passed policy that favored the people instead of the United Fruit Company, Stucky said. 

“What followed was a genocide of the Mayan people across Guatemala, made possible only by U.S.-supplied arms and intelligence,” he said.

In Cuba, for more than 60 years, the U.S. government has continued to “enforce a repressive blockade that makes life there exceptionally difficult,” he added.

“If I were a Guatemalan or a Cuban, I would hate us,” Stucky said. “I would hate every American citizen for their complacency and the oppression of my people, for allowing their money to be used to buy the bullet that killed my son, for their comfortable lives of ignorant bliss, and for the power that we Americans have to better the lives of others that we do not use. And yet, at the end of every talk, every organization visit, every Coke I buy from the tienda on the corner, they thank us for being there, and ask us not to forget them. Not forgetting is the least we can do.”

Students on the trip included: Mana Acosta, Sophia Armato, Leah Beachy, Miranda Beidler, Ella Brubaker, Lane Burkholder, Kate Krabill, Naomi Kratzer, Nathan Lehman, Maria Longenecker, Arelys Martinez Fabian, Hollyn Miller, Eli Ours, Marianne Short, Marie Spaulding, Joshua Stucky and Allysen Welty Peachey.

Read journal entries written by the students during their trip on the EMU intercultural blog.