World Languages & Cultures

Victoria Tillson, assistant professor of Italian, participated at the Canadian Society for Italian Studies annual conference in Venice, Italy June 24-26.

Nina B. Namaste, Assistant Professor of Spanish in the Department of Foreign Languages, was recently accepted to participate in the 2011-12 cohort of the Teagle Assessment Scholar Development Program.

Sophie Adamson, associate professor of French, attended the annual convention for the American Association of Teachers of French in Montreal July 7-9, 2011.

Foreign language faculty members Nina Namaste and April Post conducted a July 12 session on Venezuela with children from local public schools who are in Spanish language immersion classes.

It wasn’t enough for Victoria “Tory” Hill to simply show up for student teaching, give her lessons, and then go home. For the Spanish major who graduates Saturday from Elon University, time spent this spring at Eastern Guilford High School will benefit students for years because of her initiative to support Spanish speakers in a school with few resources to help them better learn their native language.

Jack Garratt '09, who graduated from Elon with a major in History and a minor in German Studies, has received a grant to conduct archival research at the Bundesarchiv-Lichterfelde in Berlin.

Caitlin Clarke, a sophomore International Studies and Political Science major with a minor in German Studies, has been accepted to the Fund for American Studies at Georgetown University this summer.

Kristen Klug '10, a History major and German Studies minor, has been accepted to the master's program in European Studies at the Hochschule Bremen in Germany.

Since the arrival of the Spanish to Ecuador, indigenous peoples have struggled against political and economic elites trying to introduce Western norms that undermine cultural identities. Elon senior Chris Jarrett is examining how groups interact with Ecuadorian society through political activity and development projects, and his research on the Amazonian Kichwa people is the latest work to be featured in a series of E-net profiles on Lumen Scholars in the Class of 2011.

With their growing number of students who speak little or no English, American school systems have turned largely to one of two approaches for teaching such children. Elon University senior Lindsay Mann compared the models – “English as a Second Language” and “Spanish Dual Language” – and her work is the first to be featured in a series of E-net profiles on undergraduate research to be presented during CELEBRATE! 2011.