Author Archives: Mark Del Mastro

HispaCasts: Episode 8, Devon Hanahan (Senior Instructor and Director of Casa Hispana)

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Click the link below to hear the 8th episode of HispaCasts created in collaboration with Dr. Mike Overholt from the Teaching and Learning Team.

Devon Hanahan

Episode 8 – Esther Ferguson – July 17, 2019

Dr. Mark P. Del Mastro, Chair of Hispanic Studies, interviews Devon Hanahan, Senior Instructor of Spanish, Coordinator of the College of Charleston’s Basic Spanish Language Program, and Director of the Casa Hispana, to discuss the special living-learning residence on campus that affords students of Spanish a unique educational opportunity outside the classroom.

 

Dr. Gómez Becomes Chair of HISP, Dr. Del Mastro Transitions to Associate Provost

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Effective August 5, 2019, Dr. Michael Gómez, Professor of Hispanic Studies, will become Chair of his department.  Professor Gómez has served as the inaugural Associate Chair of Hispanic Studies since July 1, 2015, and in his new leadership role he brings a wealth of administrative experience and knowledge.

Professor Mark P. Del Mastro, who has served as Chair of Hispanic Studies since 2010, has accepted a new position as the College of Charleston’s Associate Provost of Curriculum and Academic Administration.

College of Charleston’s Chapter of National Collegiate Hispanic Society Wins National Award

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For the 8th time since 2011, the College of Charleston’s Nu Zeta Chapter of Sigma Delta Pi, the National Collegiate Hispanic Honor Society, has been selected as an Honor Chapter for its noteworthy activities during the academic year.  Of the 625 chapters nationwide, the Executive Committee selects 12-15 Honor Chapters yearly for this prestigious distinction.  In July 2019, the College of Charleston was one of only 16 institutions to receive this honor for activities realized during the 2018-19 academic year, during which time Drs. Susan Divine and Carmen Grace served as chapter advisers, and Adriana Velasquez (’19) as student chapter president.

Hispanic Studies Faculty Participate in 101st Annual Conference of the AATSP

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On July 8-11, 2019 at the Town and Country Hotel in San Diego, CA, four faculty members of the Department of Hispanic Studies participated in the 101st Annual Conference of the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese (AATSP).

In the session “Innovative Curriculum II,” Professor Claudia Moran gave her presentation “Launching a Successful Conversation Class Program” along with talks by faculty from Bowling Green State University and the Unviersity of Southern California respectively.

To commemorate the 75th anniversary of Portuguese in the AATSP, Dr. María Luci De Biaji Moreira presented on a special panel entitled “Setenta e cinco anos de Português na AATSP: Um olhar para o passado. Reflexões para o futuro.”

Anchoring her own academic session, Dr. Silvia Rodríguez Sabater gave her talk “Food for Thought: Building Socially Conscious Writers through Eating Practices and Sustainability Perspectives.”

Finally, Dr. Mark P. Del Mastro was the plenary speaker for a session entitled “A Century of Recognizing Student Excellence: Sigma Delta Pi (1919-2019) and the Honor Society” that focused on select stories from his upcoming book on the 100-year history of the National Collegiate Hispanic Honor Society.  Dr. Del Mastro also organized and chaired the “Sigma Delta Pi Best Practices and Informative Session,” and he organized and co-moderated Sigma Delta Pi’s 28th Triennial Convention.

HispaCasts: Episode 7, Esther Ferguson (Philanthropist and Founder of CofC’s Program in Trujillo)

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Click the link below to hear the 7th episode of HispaCasts created in collaboration with Dr. Mike Overholt from the Teaching and Learning Team.

Dr. Del Mastro with Esther Ferguson

Episode 7 – Esther Ferguson – June 18, 2019

Dr. Mark P. Del Mastro, Chair of Hispanic Studies, interviews Esther Ferguson, philanthropist, community leader and founder of the College of Charleston’s program in Trujillo, to share Esther’s story behind her and her late husband James Ferguson’s donation of their historic properties in Trujillo, Spain to the College of Charleston in 1996.

Department of Hispanic Studies Boasts Salient Achievements for AY 2018-19

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Department of Hispanic Studies
Academic Year 2018-19

Salient Achievements

23% increase in declared Spanish majors
4% increase in declared Spanish minors
15% increase in declared Business Language Spanish minors
120% increase in declared Portuguese & Brazilian Studies minors

Launch of HispaCasts podcast series (6 episodes to date)
New Hispanic Studies Trujillo Scholarship (founded by HISP Advisory Board)
4 Speakers for our HISP Career Seminar Series

9 Featured Students in our Student Focus Series
3 Spanish majors and 1 Spanish minor receive Fulbright Awards
First graduates of our Portuguese & Brazilian Studies Program: George Gabriel and James Riggs
Return/reinstatement of the Casa Hispana/Spanish Language House

10 Featured Faculty in our Faculty Focus Series
Dr. Raúl Carrillo Arciniega inducted into the international Order of José Martí
Professors Devon Hanahan and Lauren Hetrovicz receive college-wide Distinguished Faculty Awards
Dr. Owens receives Dean’s Excellence Award for Faculty Research

This in addition to an astounding array of faculty presentations and publications,
other student achievements and departmental programming as found at our department’s News Blog
and elaborated in our upcoming spring 2019 newsletter: HispaNews (stay tuned!)

Dr. Christina García Presents Research in Multiple Venues

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Professor Christina García presented her research in three different venues during the spring of 2019:

In March she participated in the American Comparative Literature Association Conference at Georgetown University with a presentation “Eat Me: Inhuman Writings and Failed Incorporations.”

In April she was the featured speaker in Sigma Delta Pi’s Faculty Lecture Series with her study “Of Souls, Skins and Leopard Prints: Queer and Animal Creations of Cubanbeings.”

In May she presented her paper “‘Trágame. Pero no me leas’: Inhuman Writings in Ahmel Echevarría’s Búfalos camino al matadero” in the panel “Aesthetics Beyond Nature in Latin America” she co-organized at the Latin American Studies Association conference in Boston, MA.

Hispanic Studies Student Focus: May 2019

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A Foreign Language Education major in Spanish (’20), Jessica Lassiter also earned a BS in Exercise Science with a Spanish minor at the College of Charleston in 2017.  Currently she is Assistant Director, Media Manager and Senior Spanish Instructor at WL4K World Languages for Kids; has served as a medical interpreter for three different mission trips to South America; and she is a private Spanish tutor for students at Wando and Philip Simmons High Schools, among other activities.

Jessica believes that a love for languages and culture is vital in education because it provides a lens to see how people besides ourselves live. To be bilingual and multicultural is to have another set of skills in communication with others, and to Jessica that is a beautiful thing.  She is excited to employ the skills and insight that she has gained from her experiences at CofC with her future high school students.

In her own words:

My time in Hispanic Studies has been so empowering and the relationships that I have formed with the faculty in this department have been truly impactful.  After finishing my degree in Exercise Science and Spanish minor in 2017, and then taking a gap year to teach preschool Spanish classes, my professors from this department invested in me and supported my decision to return and finish my Spanish degree after a two-year hiatus while adding on the Foreign Language Education component in 2018.

The professors from this department in my experience are the most willing to help, support, and provide advice to their students out of all of the 3 departments I will be graduating with a degree from. I am proud to call the Hispanic Studies Department my “home” here at The College and am so thankful for the opportunities that I have been provided during my 6 years with them. I couldn’t have made it this far without their guidance, support, and love! Upon graduating, I plan to teach high school Spanish, where I hope to impart the same love and knowledge that my professors have afforded me during my time as a Hispanic Studies student at CofC.