Bemidji is a city and the county seat of Beltrami County, in northern Minnesota, United States. The population was 14,574 at the 2020 census. According to 2021 census estimates, the city is estimated to have a population of 15,279, making it the largest commercial center between Grand Forks, North Dakota and Duluth.
Finnish Americans comprise Americans with ancestral roots from Finland or Finnish people who immigrated to and reside in the United States. The Finnish-American population numbers a little bit more than 650,000. Many Finnish people historically immigrated to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and the Iron Range of northern Minnesota to work in the mining industry; much of the population in these regions remains of Finnish descent.
A summer camp or sleepaway camp is a supervised program for children conducted during the summer months in some countries. Children and adolescents who attend summer camps are known as campers. Summer school is usually a part of the academic curriculum for a student to make up work not accomplished during the academic year.
English villages are language education institutions which aim to create a language immersion environment for students of English in their own country.
Summer school is a school, or a program generally sponsored by a school or a school district, or provided by a private company, that provides lessons and activities during the summer vacation. Participation in summer schools has been shown to have substantial beneficial effects on education.
Lac du Bois is a French language and culture camp at the Concordia Language Villages based in Minnesota. As with the other Concordia Language Village programs, it is a language immersion program. The Lac du Bois experience is offered on two sites: one in Bemidji, MN and another in Hackensack, MN. A third site, Voyageurs (camp), provides similar language learning with a different curriculum and structure. All Concordia Language Villages programs are accredited by the American Camp Association.
Waldsee is the German immersion program offered by Concordia Language Villages. Located near Bemidji, Minnesota, Waldsee is also the site of North America's first certified passive house, which uses 85% less energy than a house built to the Minnesota Energy Code.
Lake Bemidji State Park is a state park of Minnesota, United States, on the north shore of 6,765-acre (27.38 km2) Lake Bemidji. The northern half of the park preserves a spruce-tamarack bog. A district of National Park Service rustic structures built by the Civilian Conservation Corps and National Youth Administration in the 1930s is on the National Register of Historic Places. The park is located 5 miles (8.0 km) north of the city of Bemidji.
Sjölunden(Swedish: sjö: lake, lund: grove) is the Swedish language camp site associated with Concordia Language Villages and is located at the Concordia site at Turtle River Lake, near Bemidji, Minnesota. After 30 years without an architecturally authentic Swedish site, the first step towards a village was taken on August 11, 2006 when groundbreaking for the new site took place. Sjölunden can house approximately 85 people at a time.
Dual language is a form of education in which students are taught literacy and content in two languages. Most dual language programs in the United States teach in English and Spanish, but programs increasingly use a partner language other than Spanish, such as Arabic, Chinese, French, Hawaiian, Japanese, or Korean. Dual language programs use the partner language for at least half of the instructional day in the elementary years.
Minnesota Wing, Civil Air Patrol (MNWG) is one of 52 Wings of Civil Air Patrol and helps fulfill Civil Air Patrol's core missions in Aerospace Education, Cadet Programs, and Emergency Services.
Voyageurs is a French language and culture program at the Concordia Language Villages based in northern Minnesota, United States. Recreating the life of the voyageurs, French fur traders of the 18th-century, campers cook over an open fire, bathe in the lake, and complete a grand voyage by canoe during the two- or four-week stay. All Concordia Language Villages programs are accredited by the American Camp Association.
Al-Wāḥa is an immersion-based Arabic-language camp for students between the ages of 7 and 18 associated with Concordia Language Villages. It was established in 2006 with the help from a grant from the U.S. State Department but maintains no lasting connection with the United States government.
Northern Star Council is a Boy Scout Council headquartered in Saint Paul, Minnesota. The council was formerly the Viking Council and Indianhead Council until the two councils merged on July 1, 2005. The council serves communities across central Minnesota and western Wisconsin, encompassing 25 counties.
Skogfjorden is a Norwegian language village and campsite affiliated with the Concordia Language Villages. It is located at the Concordia site at Turtle River Lake near Bemidji, Minnesota, United States. Skogfjorden is a village for language immersion where American villagers come to live and experience Norwegian language and culture.
Alexander Sabino Argüelles is an American linguist notable for his work on Korean. He is highly committed to the learning of foreign languages, and was profiled in Michael Erard's Babel No More. He is one of the polyglots listed in Kenneth Hyltenstam's Advanced Proficiency and Exceptional Ability in Second Languages, and has been described by The New Yorker as "a legendary figure in the [polyglot] community".
Curtis Calvin Rice is an American-born Norwegian linguist. He was the rector of the Norwegian University of Life Sciences from 2021 to 2023. Until 2021, he was the rector of Oslo Metropolitan University and formerly of its predecessor institution, Oslo and Akershus University College. Rice was the first rector of Oslo Metropolitan University who was not elected. He began his rectorship at Oslo Metropolitan University on 1 August 2015. A major issue of his tenure as rector has been the question of whether HiOA should apply for the status of a university to become one of Norway's new universities; it received this status on 12 January 2018. Rice is known for controversial views on the status of the Norwegian language in academia, having called for a ban on research papers in Norwegian.
Raffi Freedman-Gurspan is an Honduran American transgender rights activist and the first openly transgender person to work as a White House staffer. She was also the first openly transgender legislative staffer to work in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. She served as director of external relations at the National Center for Transgender Equality, based in Washington, DC. She is a longtime advocate and public policy specialist on matters concerning human rights, gender, and LGBT people.
The Korean Residential Language Camp is a language immersion summer camp for the Korean language in Bemidji, Minnesota, United States. It is part of the 501(c)(3) non-profit Concordia Language Villages school, and is sponsored by Concordia College. It first opened in 1999, and as of 2023 it had over 3,000 attendees across its history.
