Read about the reopening of our Cuba program and other exciting updates in this newsletter from our Academic Director, Dr. Michelle Duran: Dear friends of Spanish Studies Abroad: Blessings for the New Year! I hope this newsletter finds you well and in good shape, both mentally and physically, to start 2014. I just wanted to share with you some of the exciting projects we have been working on at Spanish Studies Abroad. Believe me… I know how tedious and time consuming newsletters can be, so I will keep this one brief. I’ll start with our most exciting piece of news! We are back in La Habana, finally, after a 10 year recess. It is with great optimism that we reopen our Cuba programming with 7 students that will attend the University of La Habana this spring. I am excited to form part of this adventure and will join the group in mid-February to sit in classes with Spanish Studies students, meet university professors and work closely with Resident Director Tom Millington in ensuring that our students are integrating well into local culture and adapting to university life. As we ease our way into Cuban society again, our students will live in Casa Vera, even though later this year we will transition to homestays. Also worth noting is that this will be the first time we’re allowed to have homestays in La Habana. Our program at Universidad del Sagrado Corazón in San Juan, Puerto Rico is also shaping up nicely with 3 students this spring and a promising group of 14 applicants for the summer. Being from Puerto Rico doesn’t provide me with an objective view point, this I know and admit. Every time I pay a visit to the USC tropical campus with the Residence halls overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, the warm breeze, homey atmosphere, professors that call you by your first name, I find myself asking the same question over and over: Who would not like to spend one semester or even a month in this academic paradise? On top of it, students are well taken care of. USC is the only university in Puerto Rico to have a 24-hour health clinic on campus whose staff takes students that need hospital care in university vehicles and accompany them throughout the visit. However, what I find truly inspiring from USC is their commitment to serving the impoverished communities in local San Juan barrios. Puerto Rican undergraduates and faculty are engaged and committed to serving the needy and perhaps these ethical convictions make this university community as a whole a peaceful place to study. And even though I already mentioned this is my fall newsletter… it’s worth noting yet again that Spanish is the sole language of communication in Puerto Rico. Seville, our oldest program, is home this year to several custom programs. Guilford College, UMAIE (Upper Midwest Association of Independent Colleges) and Union College joined us in January and in February we welcome a fantastic group of 16 students from the University of Maryland. The spring students will be the first to-do our online placement test, administered by the University of Alicante. Students do the exam at the comfort of their home or university in the US before coming to Seville. Having early results – that in fact are more accurate of what their true language level is – allows the Resident Director to fine tune course placements and to weed out the students that should not be taking integrated courses at the University. The language classes, both at the Intensive and Continuation Periods, offered in Seville will benefit from a new language teaching methodology called ENCUESTA designed by the Center’s founder, Dr. Gerald Guidera, based on acquiring practical vocabulary and day-to-day Spanish from household members (especially the señoras) and incorporating it into the classroom through practical role-playing situations. This dynamic and interactive exercise is meant to strengthen even more our Spanish Only Policy by giving students the vocabulary they need to communicate their daily needs. I visited our site in Cordoba this past October and what a joy it was to see a group of 32 very talented students working hard on their Spanish and pronouncing it with a delightful cordobés accent. This program continues to be unique for its enclave in a small, colonial city, with very few Americans and tourists, and just a short bus ride away from breathtaking landscapes. Students get to travel less “internationally” and more so in land which, in the end, allows them to become more culturally integrated. Starting in February, Spanish Studies inaugurates a new office location, right at the heart of the UNC campus that will allow students to be in permanent contact with the Resident Director and university life in general. And on a more personal note, I will be working these coming weeks on finishing a piece for the upcoming book Forging a Rewarding Career in the Humanities (Sense Publishers) for current and future graduate students that find themselves at difficult junctures in the challenging and long lasting years of graduate school. It’s meant to be an inspiring essay to help students complete with joy what they have started and to step out of the “ABD” comfort zone. I hope to see many of you at the Forum in San Diego this coming April. I will be presenting a session entitled Academic Directors Overseas: Challenges of Managing the Academics in Latin American and European Programs with colleague Dr. José Alvarez (Associate VP) from CEA. A big thank you and a huge hug for your continued support of Spanish Studies Abroad programs! Michelle
Posted on: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 16:18:19 +0000
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