Service

In 2016, the president of UFJF invited Bárbara Simões to take an administrative position as Dean of International Relations. From May of that year until January 2021, Bárbara coordinated a team of 11 staff members and around 20 interns.

Among her duties, she was responsible for promoting internationalization in the institution among staff, teachers and students, establishing agreements with universities and foreign entities from 34 countries, managing outgoing and incoming mobility for students, teachers and technical staff, promoting and instituting language teaching programs, and establishing a language policy for the institution. Her achievements during that period are summarized below:

Created a Project for Internationalization and had it approved by the University council and President.
Created a Project for the acquisition of Language 2 (English) and Multilingualism for the academic community and had it approved by the University council and president.
Created and developed the Global July Program.
Raised funds with the American embassy for Global July Program (airfare for invited faculty).
Enhanced existing mobility Programs (PIIGRAD) at UFJF.
Instituted Faculty exchange program.
Instituted Faculty mobility program for Capacity Building in English at Temple University (PROMID).
Enabled UFJF to be an authorized test center for the Brazilian Portuguese Proficiency exam – Celpe-Bras – the only Portuguese proficiency certificate officially recognized by the Brazilian Government.
Increased the number of incoming and outgoing students.
Expanded Portuguese for foreigners area by creating “Brazilian literature” and “Brazilian studies” courses in Global July and by institutionalizing a scholarship for Portuguese for foreigners course in the Languages without Borders Program.
Created 5 internships for Languages without Borders program, institutionalizing French, Italian, German, Spanish and Portuguese for Foreigners.
Created a program for incoming students to teach their mother tongue at the campus (“More Languages”).
Negotiated “More Languages abroad”, and got internships at Hankuk University in South Korea, and supervised this program, where two students per year from Federal University of Juiz de For would go for mobility and teach Portuguese for foreigners.
Coordinated TOEFL testing from 2015-2019 at UFJF.
Created NAI: The International Student Support Center.

Among her main accomplishments, we have highlighted some of the programs she created that had the greatest impact on the growth of internationalization at UFJF:

Global July: Launched in 2017 for the first time by the International Relations Office (DRI), the Global July program brought together students and professors from all around the world to Juiz de Fora. The program created and offered Free courses in all areas of knowledge such as Exact Sciences, Life Sciences, Linguistics, Literature and Arts, Humanities and Health Sciences. The courses were offered and taught in different foreign languages. Global July goal was to strengthen the internationalization of the University, attracting foreign students and professors, as well as enabling new partnerships. The students can freely choose to attend between undergraduate and graduate level courses.

Further information about Global July can be found at the website: www.ufjf.br/globaljuly
NAI: The International Student Support Center was created to provide international
students the best Study Abroad experience. The center offers activities and support tocomplement and enhance their academic life.

Mais Idiomas Project: This project offers scholarships for international students who teach their mother tongue to the academic community of Federal University of Juiz de Fora (U$ 100 each class). The goal was to encourage students to share their language skills as a way of enhancing UFJF’s internationalization process.

The Mundi Gallery: This program was created so there could be a space for showcasing activities and artwork of UFJF’s international students and community, especially those developed during study abroad days.

Promid: The program was created with the objective of promoting international teaching mobility as an instrument for internationalization of the curriculum at UFJF. The 2019 edition took place at Temple University, PA, USA. Faculty received funds to go and pay for their course on EMI and had to come back and teach at least one of their subjects in English at Federal University of Juiz de Fora. While at Temple, they were among their peers, strengthening strategic partnerships.

Labint: This program was created to support professors who wanted to publish in
international journals. Institutional Content Translation, a Proofreading Program and Review of Scientific Articles. Students were led by DRI staff and Bachelor of Translation Professors. There were 20 monthly scholarships of U$ 100.

In addition to her service to the institution during the years she headed the DRI, Bárbara Simóes stood out on the national stage, being elected in 2018 to take up the position of vice-president of the Council of Directors of International Relations of the Federal Universities of Brazil (CGRIFES). She created work groups with all the 65 deans to build a national strategy for internationalization of the federal universities of the country (2018- 2021). In addition, she represented her institution as Institutional Coordinator of Languages without Borders program at the Ministry of Education between 2016 and 2021.