RLLRLL NewsNews The Department of Romance Languages and Literatures College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Florida Issue no. 7, Spring 2002 J Killer & X Moors, Editors / G C Nichols, General Editor Dear alumni and friends of RLL, Theresa Antes and Joaquim Camps in eted (c. 240). This Newsletter should reach you our applied linguistics group; with three Our study early in 2002, and so I take this oppor- specialists on hand, RLL is well on the abroad pro- tunity to send you warmest wishes, on way to becoming as a center of excel- grams in Rio, behalf of faculty, staff and students in lence in this highly sought-after field. Rome and Romance Languages, for a peaceful Higher education has been dramati- Provence year in 2002. cally restructured in Florida since last had a banner This year has been difficult at the we spoke. Each university now has a summer in University of Florida. The ghastly Board of Trustees, while the state-level 2001, and we events of September 11 cast a pall over Board of Regents has been abolished. inaugurated the campus that reminded longtimers It isn’t entirely clear how this change a new pro- of the student murders of 1990. Teach- will affect UF, but we are at last in the gram in Se- ers and students may have been competent hands of a “permanent” ville. In Sum- equally shaken, but helping the under- rather than interim higher administra- mer 2002, we graduates to cope was of primary con- tion. This includes a new Dean of Lib- will add another in Santander (Spain). cern in the department. Because lan- eral Arts and Science, Neil Sullivan, It’s gratifying to report the great suc- guage classes are never larger than who has been a great supporter of the cess achieved by our innovative For- 25, RLL faculty and TAs are often the humanities. eign Languages Across the Curriculum only teachers at UF who know a given Last year RLL reaped the first fruits (FLAC) program, started with a US student’s name, and thus we felt a par- of changes made in our PhD programs Department of Education grant in 1995 ticular responsibility to offer our stu- during my first year as Chair, designed (see article elsewhere in Newsletter). dents whatever help we could. to streamline the path to the degree. We can’t keep up with student demand The recession deepened after Sep- We had the largest number of PhD for the courses! The Warrington Col- tember, and tourist income plummeted; graduates in our history: six in Span- lege of Business, the Center for Latin recent cuts in education funding have ish, and one in French. MA graduates American Studies, and the nascent been substantial. We had hoped to hire were at record levels as well: eleven in European Studies Program have all four new professors this year, but bud- Spanish, six in French. Sixteen new made RLL’s FLAC courses a corner- get cuts prompted a hiring freeze, and graduate students entered in Fall 01 (12 stone of recent grant proposals. we will have to get by with our current in Spanish, 4 in French), including one Let me applaud a few more standout faculty. This gives us an extra year to Presidential and two Alumni Scholars. achievements by RLL faculty: Shifra dote on three newly-arrived assistant Majors are holding steady in French Armon’s successful bid for tenure and professors: Rori Bloom, Gillian Lord, (72), Spanish (124) and Portuguese promotion to Associate Professor; and Andrew Lynch. Dr. Lord joins (6), but Spanish minors have skyrock- Carol Murphy’s receipt of the Palmes Académiques from the French govern- ment, for significant contributions to the In this Issue diffusion of French culture; David Pharies’ direction and edition of a new Department News and Announcements ............................................................2 version of the University of Chicago J. Wayne Conner Memorial Fund .....................................................................3 Spanish-English dictionary; my election Alfonsina Lorenzi Memorial Scholarship Fund ..................................................3 as President of the Association of De- RLL Foundation Fund 2000 ...............................................................................3 Alumni/ae News ................................................................................................4 partments of Foreign Languages (an New & Newest Faculty ......................................................................................5 organization affiliated with the Modern RLL Study Abroad Programs ............................................................................6 Language Association); Reynaldo RLL Staff ...........................................................................................................6 From the Undergraduate Coordinators..............................................................7 Jiménez’s conclusion of a highly suc- From the Graduate Coordinators ......................................................................8 cessful three-year term as Chief Fac- Sigma Delta Pi (Hispanic Honor Society) .........................................................8 ulty Reader for the Spanish Advanced “A Rio Diary” by Libby Ginway ........................................................................10 RLL Faculty News ...........................................................................................10 Placement Exam; the publication of Continued on page 15 DEPARTMENT NEWS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS FRENCH Terry McCoy and Carmen Cañete); they don’t always coincide. It is a place The UF French Club is a student or- “Mexican Cultural Icons” (Dr. Efraín of risk-taking, insight, and exhilaration ganization whose mission is to pro- Barradas and José Ignacio González); and also of fear, frustration, and resis- mote a friendly atmosphere where “World Music Ensemble: Jacaré Bra- tance; a place of striving and of strife, members can share their interests in zil” (Dr. Larry Crook and Dr. Libby of opening to learning and of shutting francophone culture, while they im- Ginway); “Business and Economics in down. prove their French language skills. Latin America” (Dr. Doug Waldo and In addition to teaching what we per- Meetings are held twice a month. Ad- Diana Serrano); “Spain and the Euro- ceive to be the content of the course, ditional information, as well as a sched- pean Union” (Dr. Leann Brown and the way we conduct our classes and ule of planned events, is available at María Guerrero); “U.S.-Latin American shape those fleeting communities re- the club website: http://plaza.ufl.edu/ Cultural Relations” (Dr. Alejandra flects our different views about the rodolfo Bronfman and Dr. Greg Moreland). kinds of community we believe in and New Course: SPN 2440, “Interme- provides a model for the uses of power. HAITIAN CREOLE diate Spanish for Business” This happens whether we do it con- The Haitian Creole section is doing Dr. Greg sciously or unconsciously. Our students well here at UF. Last fall we had an Moreland, RLL’s move on from our classes having enrollment of 80 students in the 4 sec- Liaison with the learned not only another language, but tions being taught, and I was obliged Center for Inter- also how to relate to others, how to use to turn away 15 more students who national Busi- power, how to cope with success and wanted to begin study of the language. ness Education failure, how to listen, how to deal with We hope to have a TA next year to and Research differences. teach more sections. I hope, in the near (CIBER), devel- The Teaching Support Group cur- future, to teach a class of 3230 in Hai- oped and rently meets informally once a month tian Literature or History or Culture. taught—with to discuss in a thoughtful and inten- Jean Gilles, [email protected]. CIBER fund- tional way these issues of what we are ing—a new doing in the classroom. PORTUGUESE course aimed at We try to be especially attentive to The past fall term saw healthy en- expanding the department’s presence those who are beginning to teach, and rollments in Brazilian Drama and Luso- in the growing field of languages for welcome requests to address certain Brazilian Culture. We have a new Bra- the professions. SPN 2440 made its topics. For example in our first meet- zilian teaching assistant, Patricia debut in Summer A, 2001. Ten stu- ing we talked about how to be creative Belchior, who is teaching our introduc- dents enrolled in this successful initial in the classroom, how to move away tory classes. Pedro Werneck, a section. Summer 2002 will see it be- from and then back to the textbook in a videographer from Rio de Janeiro, has ing offered as part of the department’s pedagogically sound way that moti- recently completed a 15-min. video and new Study Abroad Program in vates students with different learning CD ROM to publicize the Rio program, Santander, Spain. styles. which had 42 participants for 2001. The Teaching Support Group The topic of the second meeting was Organized by Spanish lecturer Kathy how to respond to aggression, resis- SPANISH Dwyer-Navajas, is an on-going forum tance or bad attitudes in the classroom: Foreign Languages Across the for discussing ideological, method- those resistant silences, those racist/ Curriculum (FLAC) ological and institutional issues related homophobic/sexist/ nationalist/etc RLL continues to collaborate with to teaching. For many of us the class- comments, rudeness and other disci- other departments in offering FLAC room is a place of dynamic transfor- pline problems—basically those emo- courses. Workshops are held each mation where people form a provi-