This Week in LACS 5/6/2024
Dates and Events this Week
May 11
RSVP for the Commencement Ceremony you plan to attend
- CHESS Commencement, 10:00 am, Halton Arena
- Graduate School Commencement, 3:00 pm, Halton Arena
Looking Ahead
Dates and Events
May 13-17
- OIP’s GLII Institute
May 15
Chair Report from Department Meeting
- Consent Calendar moved to next Department Meeting (Guidelines for Syllabi and Teaching)
- Year in Review
- Reappointments and Promotions
- What’s Next: Summer
- Leadership:
- May 15-June 30: Kai serves as Interim Chair, Virtual Office hours
- July 1-August 12: Anabel serves as Chair and takes on Associate Chair duties, Virtual Office hours
- Administrative Support:
- Main Office: May 15-August 1
- Monday – Carol or Hanna in office
- Tuesday – Friday remote
- Jules remote until July 31
- Main Office: May 15-August 1
- Leadership:
- What’s Next: Fall 2024 and Spring 2025
Meeting Schedule 2024-25
First Week of the Semester:
Tuesday August 13, 2024, 10:00 am-1:00 pm
Wednesday, August 14, 2024, 1:00-4:00 pm
Regular Department Meetings:
Fall 2024
Friday, September 6, 2024, 2:30-4:00 pm
Friday, October 4, 2024, 2:30-4:00 pm*
Friday, November 1, 2024, 2:30-4:00 pm*
Friday, November 22, 2024, 2:30-4:00 pm (Virtual)
Thursday, December 5, 2024, 10:30 am -12:00 pm, 12:00-2:00 party
*additional meetings might have to be scheduled in October depending on our progress on the workload policy and the deadline provided by CHESS
Spring 2025
Friday, January 10, 2025, 2:30-4:00 pm
Friday, February 7, 2025, 2:30-4:00 pm
Friday, March 14, 2025, 2:30-4:00 pm
Friday, April 11, 2025, 2:30-4:00 pm (Virtual)
Tuesday, April 30, 2025, 10:30 am-12:00 pm,12:00-2:00pm party
- What’s Next: 2024-25 Personnel
Associate Chair: Anton Pujol (Fall 2024)
On RDL (Fall 2024)
Michèle Bissière
Carlos Coria-Sanchez
Phil Kaffen
Kai Werbeck
Director of Santander Program (Fall 2024 – Spring 2025)
Mónica Rodríguez
On Leave (Fall 2024 – Spring 2025)
Lorena Delgadillo
Welcome to New Faculty:
Assistant Professor Don Cross
MA Fellows
Jenn Burke
Kallie de la Cruz
Jorge Manzanilla Perez
Tatiana Wilkins
TBA
DAAD Language Assistant
Annalena Böke
- What’s Next: Goals for 2024-25
Fix errors in Bylaws
Integrate Professional Advisors
Strengthen the Honors Program
Revise Workload Policy based on CHESS Workload Policy
Revise Annual Merit Guidelines
Revise RPT
Revise TFPR Policy
Revise Graduate Faculty Appointment Policy
Revise Travel Policy
Revise remaining Teaching Policies
Streamline Undergraduate and Graduate Spanish programs
Consider Heritage Language Learning
Implement Strategic Plan
Create Student Lounge
Farewell
Retirement
Our dear colleague Anastasia Koralova is retiring effective June 30, 2024. To honor her, we created a collage of translations of one of Anastasia’s original poems “The Turtle.” Colleagues in the department translated the poem from Russian into English, Arabic, French, German, Japanese, Italian, Spanish and Latin. In addition, Jules and Hanna each included a drawing of a turtle. Thank you to all who contributed to this project and to all of you for signing the card for Anastasia.
We wish Anastasia the best of luck in her retirement and many happy days. We will miss her dearly.
Congratulations
Congratulations to David Boyd for receiving promotion with conferral of tenure on May 1, 2024.
Congratulations to Anton Pujol for the publication of his edited volume Catalan Cinema: The Barcelona Film School and the New Avant-Garde.
Congratulations to Susana Cisneros for being named the 2024 CxC Outstanding Faculty Mentor. Students praised her work to integrate communication consultants and communication into her teaching in her courses as well as her collaborative approach.
Congratulations to the Japanese program for hosting a successful Year-End Presentation with more than 105 audience members and faculty. On April 26th from 3:00 to 5:00 pm, a total of 20 performances by students from elementary through advanced Japanese courses were presented on the stage in Fretwell 100. They were nervous but excited to share their achievements this academic year. Besides their performance, we had two recognition ceremonies. The first one was of the Order of Dogwood academic recognition by Stephen Sumner, the director of NC Japan Center. Order of Dogwood medals were awarded for ten students who have a GPA of 3.25 or higher, had a learning experience in Japan, will graduate with one of the following combinations: multiple majors, one of which requires Japan studies or Japanese language or at least one major and at least one minor, one of which requires Japan studies or Japanese language. The recognized students were Ariel Von Alberto, Faith Bailey, Andrew Brooks, Gabrielle Bryant, Gladiz De la Rosa Ceballo, Brennan Knight, Christopher McDuffie, Luca Kawamura Sandrini, Zainab Sayed and Amali Worrell. Another ceremony was for the JBusiness Forum 2023 recognizing the presenters. Certificates and commemorative pens were given by Enika Banerjee, the coordinator of the JBusiness Forum. The recognized students were Alexis Abella and Nydasia Gray.
Commencement
Saturday, May 11, 10:00 am
College of Humanities & Earth and Social Sciences
Saturday, May 11, 3:00 pm
Graduate School
Thank you
Thank you to Kai for being a wonderful Associate Chair this year. I am so grateful for your support and look forward to another year of working with you.
Thank you to Chris for doing an outstanding job as Graduate Program Director. What a year of challenges it has been! I am so appreciative of all your support and effort.
Thank you to Olga for running the elementary Spanish Program successfully and for steering us into a new era of face to face instruction at the elementary level and a new textbook.
Thank you to Jeff, Allison, Michèle, Angela, Noha, Yukiko, Daniela, Fang-yi and Anastasia for coordinating your respective programs. You have all adjusted to the many changes that came our way and have done a wonderful job supporting our programs.
Thank you to all our advisors, Paloma, Shaun, Angela, Yukiko, Daniela, Fang-yi, Noha, Anastasia and Mary, our standalone advisors for doing an excellent job advising our students. I know we will rely on your expertise and experience as we transition to Professional Advisors in 2024-25. Thank you for all that you have done and continue to do.
Thank you to Allison and Phil for directing the Honors program. I look forward to next year when we hope to grow the program with the support of the entire department.
Thank you to the DRC TT (José Manuel, Concepción, Mónica, David D., Allison and Phil) for the work you did this year. I am very grateful for the work you have done in all areas including the tenure case we had this year.
Thank you to the inaugural DRC NTT (Jose Manuel, Concepción, Chikako, Daniela and Ryan). As a new committee you have done a fabulous job with all the NTT reappointments and promotions.
Thank you to the inaugural CAPC (Allison, Anton, David D, Ryan, Paloma and Javier) for bearing with me as I figured out what the actual work of the CAPC would look like from week to week. Thank you for your support and energy you put into making this a successful year. I am deeply grateful to all of you and I hope that it also gave you insights into how the department runs.
Thank you to the MAC (Michèle, Phil, Kai, Noha and Enika) for working with me on the annual evaluation process. I appreciate the expediency with which you completed the work, which allowed me in turn to complete the evaluations as I had planned.
Thank you to the inaugural DEI committee (Olga, Aura, Maryrica, Mary, and Jules). You have done an excellent job with the projects requested of the department this year. I appreciate all your hard work.
Thank you to the UCC committee (Susanne, David B., Shaun) for handling the innumerable undergraduate curriculum proposals this year as we were streamlining our programs. You have done such a great job and we hope to see the impact of your work next year.
Thank you to the GC committee (Jeff, David D., and Mónica) for their work on the graduate curricula in an effort to streamline it. I am very grateful for the proposals you brought to the faculty and look forward to one of the proposals realized as we move forward.
Thank you to the Search Committee (Jeff, Kai, Allison, David B, and Javier) for running an excellent search with the outcome that we were able to hire a new Assistant Professor, Don Cross to support our Spanish and French programs.
Thank you to Carol who has managed to keep everything running smoothly in spite of the innumerable changes we have faced this year. In addition, you have continued to be the heart of this department and we all appreciate you so much.
Thank you to Hanna and Jules whose work has made such a difference to all of us. You are both so valued and I personally have been able to manage this first year much better because of work with you.
Thank you to Bobby and Gabriel for keeping our Language Resource Center a top notch active learning classroom, the envy of everyone around us. It is such a privilege to have this space and your support.
Thank you to all of you who hosted events, speakers, organized student clubs, excursions, study abroad, and the myriad other activities that have taken place this year in our department. I appreciate all of you so much.
Please look for the Newsletter “This Year in LACS: 2023-24” which I will share with you at our first meeting in August for a review of this year, my first as chair.
I am looking forward to the summer and hope that you all will get a break and come back refreshed for AY 2024-25. We have many tasks and some challenges ahead. Together we will manage and I look forward to serving you as chair next year.
All the best,
Anabel