I hope you all had a great weekend. It’s almost Spring Break. Thank you to those of you who organized, supported and attended the Heritage Language Learning Symposium on Thursday and Friday last week and the Japanese Speech Contest on Friday. Both events were very successful with over 200 faculty, students, and teachers attending the Symposium and more than 100 attendees at the Japanese Speech Contest. 

Dates and Events this Week

This Month is Black History Month. 

Tuesday, February 27

• Workshop: Recruiting and Supporting Employees with Disabilities, 12:00-1:30 pm, Please register

Friday, March 1

• Register for 2nd Annual UNC Charlotte AI Institute
• Deadline to sign up to join Core of Excellence Teams: google form 
• Deadline to submit Book Orders for Summer Sessions here

Looking Ahead

Dates and Events

March 2

• Deadline to submit proposal for FLANC. Submit Proposal Here
• Atrium Summit, UNC Charlotte Center City, Popp Martin Student Union

March 8

• Deadline to submit proposals for 2nd Annual UNC Charlotte AI Institute. Submit  proposals

March 13

• 2024-25 Inclusive Excellence Grants submissions due
• RPT Workshop (March 13, 2024 (4:00-5:00 pm) CHESS-RPT Workshops- RSVP

March 14

• RPT Workshop (3:00-4:00 pm) CHESS-RPT Workshops- RSVP

March 15

• Spanish Graduate Faculty Meeting 12:30-2:00 pm
• Department Meeting 2:30-4:00 pm, LRC 
• RPT Workshop (10:00-11:00 am) CHESS-RPT Workshops- RSVP

March 18

• Faculty Forum for Promotion to Full Professor, 3:00-5:00 pm, Cone 314/Lucas Room (Register)

March 29

• Deadline to submit the International Women’s Day Nomination Form 
• LACS Presentation Series – Conversations about AI – Manuel Pérez-Quiñones, “Conversational Systems and AI”, 2:30-3:30 pm, LRC and Zoom

March 31

• Environmental Health and Safety Compliance Training due

April 1

• Faculty Achievement Recognition Celebration 

April 2

• 4:30-5:30 pm, Witness in Residence, rescheduled event

April 12

• Department Meeting 2:30-4:00 pm, LRC 

April 19

• LACS Presentation Series – Conversations about AI – Bobby Hobgood, “AI in the Language Classroom”, 2:30-3:30 pm, LRC and Zoom

April 30

• Department Meeting 10:30 am-12:00 pm, Party 12:00-2:00 pm 

May 1

• Deadline to submit Book Orders for Fall 2024 here

May 4, 

• CATI Conference, 8:00-5:00 pm, Cone Center, Sign up here

May 13-17

• OIP’s GLII Institute

May 15

• AI Institute for Smarter Learning 

Congratulations & Thank you

Congratulations to Mónica Rodríguez for publishing the peer reviewed article “Extrinsic sources of translator job satisfaction: Revisiting critical factors in a multifaceted construct.” Special issue of Translation Spaces. Published Online 15 Feb 2024. https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/ts.23024.rod 

Congratulations to Jeff Killman for publishing. “Los tipos textuales de la traducción jurídica y la traducción automática.” In Traducción automática en contextos especializados, ed. María del Mar Sánchez Ramos and Celia Rico Pérez, 93-115. New York: Peter Lang. 

Shoutout to Ryan Augustyniak who was named a finalist for the College of Humanities & Earth and Social Sciences Award for Outstanding Teaching by a Full-Time Faculty Member (NTT). 

Congratulations to Chikako Mori who received the SEATJ 2024 Teacher of the Year Award. Chikako was honored during an award ceremony at the end of this year’s annual conference of the Southeastern Association of Teachers of Japanese.

Congratulations to Yukiko Yokono, Chikako Mori, Enika Banerjee and Kazue Shamburg for presenting at this year’s annual conference of the Southeastern Association of Teachers of Japanese. 

Congratulations to Sandra Watts for having been named the Lee Barnes Campus Debate Faculty Fellow at UNC Charlotte. Funded by a gift from The Barnes Family Foundation, this project will bring a series of Braver Angels-style debates to North Carolina public universities in 2024 and 2025, with the goal of exposing students to a model of respectful civil discourse and fostering a culture of free expression on their campuses. One Lee Barnes Campus Debate Faculty Fellow is named at each UNC system campus. 

Congratulations also to Sandra Watts for her presidential appointment as a member of the EDUCAUSE Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Advisory Committee. Her appointment is a three-year term. EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association whose mission is to lead the way, advancing the strategic use of technology and data to further the promise of higher education. As a member of EDUCAUSE’s DEI committee, Sandra will assist in providing recommendations and counsel to help advance DEI at EDUCAUSE member institutions. The committee performs two major functions: (1) advise EDUCAUSE leadership on DEI matters in association strategy and programming; (2) serve as the voice of the EDUCAUSE membership on DEI matters.

Congratulations to Javier García León, Paloma Fernández Sánchez, Olga Padilla-Falto and Lorena Delgadillo for hosting the 4th Annual Heritage Language Learning Symposium last week on Thursday and Friday. The Symposium was a huge success with over 200 people in attendance. 

Please see a Message from the organizing team here: 

We want to thank everyone who attended the 2024 Heritage Language Learning Symposium last Thursday and Friday. The symposium was successful in providing discussions of new research in teaching practices for heritage language learners and useful classroom practices. We hosted over 50 K-12 teachers on campus from all over the Carolinas and more than 200 people registered for the online sessions. We want to use this opportunity to thank several people in our department for their support and effort to make the symposium a reality and a success. 

“A heartfelt thank you to Carol Hartley for all her knowledge and logistics. Without her efforts, the event would not have been possible. 

Thank you, Hanna and Jules for their support in the preparations leading up to the event. 

Thanks to Gabriel Gavin for all the technological support on both days. 

Thanks to Bobby Hobgood for his support with the LRC. 

Thank you, Troy Senecal (Spanish Major) for his assistance pre-, during, and post-event. 

We were fortunate to have an outstanding group of Spanish majors (Yaya Corza, Miguel Quinteros, Jamie Roldan-Moquete, Anna Hoang) who volunteered on both days, thank you!

A special thanks to our chair, Dr. Anabel Aliaga-Buchenau, for launching the event on Thursday, for logistics pre-during and post-event, and for continuous support.

The 2024 Heritage Language Learning Symposium Organizers 

(Dr. Paloma Fernández Sánchez, Dr. Olga Padilla-Falto, María Lorena Delgadillo Latorre, and Dr. Javier García León)”

Thursday afternoon workshop – Dr. Paola Guerrero-Rodríguez

Friday morning research session – Dr. Paola Guerrero-Rodríguez

Friday afternoon workshop Dr. Esperanza Román-Mendoza

2024 Heritage Language Learning Opening session – Dr. Melissa Bowles

Congratulations to the Japanese Program for organizing a successful Japanese Speech Contest. The Japanese Studies Program organized the 18th Japanese Speech Contest 2024 on Friday, February 23rd. 105 people participated. 36 speakers recited their thoughts and passion in Japanese. Kudos to all Japanese Faculty for working hard on this program .

The 1st prize winners of each level will have a chance to compete at Duke University in late March, 2024. 

Winners: Level 1 

1st Prize: Liam June “My Workout” {instructor- Yukie Okada) 

2nd Prize: Nikolas Yanez ” YOU Should Watch Attack of Titan!” (instructor-Enika Banerjee) 

2nd Prize: Caroline Herrera “My Country” (instructor- Seirin Nagano) 

Winners Level2 

1st Prize: Alec Pike “3D Girls Are Better” (instructor- Chikako Mori) 

2nd Prize: Isaiah Alvarado-Ramirez “Trip to Camping” (instructor- Chikako Mori) 

2nd Prize: Javier Martell “Why You Should Watch One Piece” (instructor- Chikako Mori) 

Winners Level3 

1st Prize: Joshua Shackelford “The Folly of “Impermanence”” instructor- Kazue Shamburg 

2nd Prize: Kieran Kaczmarek “Let’s Learn a Second Language!” instructor- Kazue Shamburg 

3rd Prize: Logan Baker “The Japanese Phrase “Ganbaru”” instructor- Kazue Shamburg

Announcements & Updates

COACHE Survey

I would like to encourage all of you to complete the confidential COACHE Faculty Job Satisfaction Survey.  The email would have come directly to faculty in the last week or so. To find it in your inbox search for

From: Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education coachefaculty@abtsurvey.com via mandrillapp.com

Subject: Help UNC Charlotte assess the academic workplace

As you may already be aware, the COACHE survey is designed to help us understand, and then improve, your experience as a faculty member at UNC Charlotte. To give two examples, previous COACHE data led directly to the Faculty Governance and RPT workshops that CHESS now runs each year, and at the University level, COACHE data led to the ADVANCE FADO programs that provide information and mentoring for mid-career faculty. But in order to have confidence in the data we need a strong response rate; hence this email.  Please complete the COACHE survey, the data will not just sit on a shelf.  As an incentive, the ADVANCE FAD Office is providing $500 in travel funding to a randomly selected faculty member in the college with the highest completion rate and $250 to a faculty member in the college with the second highest completion rate. If one of those winners is in CHESS the college will throw in an additional $500.

2024 Faculty Achievement Recognition Celebration 

Dean’s Office staff is busy preparing for the 2024 Faculty Achievement Recognition Celebration now rescheduled to April 1. Along with Teaching Awards, we will be recognizing the publication of books and digital products published in calendar year 2023, as well as internal and external honors and recognition for AY2024. If you would like to loan us a copy of a published book (or other symbol of recognition) please send it to Shanique Parker in FRET Suite 430 (with your name and return address!). To ensure that your faculty is recognized, please add data to this form by March 11 (new, because we have a little more time). Please do not submit grant data or rank promotions at this time or send your information by email.

Atrium Health Language Access Summit: Unifying Voices for Health Equity

Join us for the largest and most prominent healthcare interpreting event in the country featuring the industry’s leading experts! On Saturday, March 2 · 9am – 4pm EST, Popp Martin Student Union UNC Charlotte is hosting the 5th annual Atrium Health Summit of  medical interpreting professionals from around the country. Free for all to attend.

Presenters include:

• Gabriela Siebach
• Sarah Stockler-Rex
• Kenton Myers
• Gloshanda Lawyer
• Kevin Thakkar
• Indira Sultanic
• Marisa Rueda Will

CATI Conference: Working Globally, Networking Globally

Please join us for the 36th annual CATI: Carolina Association of Translators and Interpreters Conference.  It will be held on May 4,8:00 am-5:00 pm at Cone Center. Sessions include the following: 

• Inclusive and Non-binary Language, Pragmatic and Linguistic Tools for English-Spanish by Javier Garcia León
• The Process of Becoming an Immigration Interpreter by Maria Gasper
• My New AI Assistant: Current AI Trends in Translation by Laura Viale
• Ethics and Market Forces: Trends Shaping the Profession by John Arroyave
• Traducir lo Intraducible, O Cómo Hacer Que Shakespeare “Suene” En Español by Santiago Garcia Castañón
• An Embarrassing Visit to the Gastroenterologist – A Hands’ On Role Play for Interpreter Practice by Melissa Soto-Escobar
• Strategic Interpreting: Techniques and Scripts for Advanced Negotiation and Collaboration During the Interpreted Encounter (part 1) by Andrea Henry
• What Employers Are Looking For: A Nationwide Analysis of Job Description for Translators and Interpreters in Educational Settings by Mónica Rodriguez-Castro and Gabriela Siebach
• Summarization in Spoken Healthcare Interpreting: Heresy or Strategy by Catherine Wilson

The keynote speaker is Andrea Henry, who is a CCHI Commissioner and nationally recognized subject matter expert on interpreting in healthcare. Her keynote is “Irreplaceable Interpreters: How Stepping Up and Standing Out Can Help Us Stay Relevant in Our Fast-Changing Industry. For more information see the CATI website. Sign up to attend here. 

GLII Institute
The Office of International Programs (OIP) is offering this annual faculty development initiative focused on campus global learning and internationalization efforts and invites faculty to apply for the Global Learning and Internationalization Institute, Monday, May 13, through Friday, May 17.

Tax Assistance
Niner Finances is offering Volunteer Income Tax Assistance for the 2023 tax year! Members of the UNC Charlotte community who make $64,000 or less can have their taxes prepared through the VITA program. More information is on the NinerFinances website.

Environmental Health and Safety Compliance Training

The required annual environmental health and safety compliance training, assigned to all University faculty, staff and student workers, must be completed by Sunday, March 31. Access the training through the Learning and Development Portal.

Student Achievements

Successful examinees for JLPT (a national Japanese language proficiency test. N1 is the highest level) are: Luke Hutton (N1, alumni), Andrew Brooks (N1, senior), Chris McDuffie (N2, senior), Von Alberto (N3, senior), Chase Chiswell (N3, senior), Khang Pham (N3), Zainab Sayed (N3, senior), Austin Sears (N3, senior) and Joshua Shackelford (N3, junior). https://www.jlpt.jp/e/. Congratulations to all of them and to the Japanese program faculty who support their students. 

Thank you for all that you do. 

All the best,

Anabel