Bethanny Sudibyo, assistant teaching professor of Spanish in Â鶹ĘÓƵ’s Department of World Languages and Cultures, is building a bridge between comprehension and community.

Sudibyo’s community engagement (CE) course, Spanish for Healthcare, lets students learn and use Spanish in a practical setting through a partnership with Open Door Clinic in Burlington, North Carolina.

“It was always one of my goals to have a community engagement component,” said Sudibyo. “I didn’t want students to simply learn in the classroom because I think if we are thinking about language as a way to connect with people and to help the community, we should also put that into practice.”

The purpose of the course is to prepare students to interact with patients who may not be comfortable communicating in English in a healthcare setting. After a few weeks of preparation, students are required to volunteer for two sessions, doing tasks such as shadowing a Spanish translator, translating promotional materials into Spanish and supporting patients who may be more comfortable speaking Spanish while acting as an interpreter between the patient and healthcare professional.

“I honestly didn’t know what to expect,” said Hannah Nunez ’28, a public health major, who took Spanish for Healthcare in the fall of 2025. “But I really liked connecting with patients and having one-on-one conversations with them. You could tell that they were very appreciative.
It is very nerve-wracking. But honestly, they don’t care if you mess up.
It’s more so that you’re trying.”

The course was pitched to make language learning a more hands-on skill. Â鶹ĘÓƵ as an institution is passionate about professional experience, especially healthcare-focused programming such as nursing or physician assistant. By combining this with language learning, Sudibyo turns Spanish into a skill that can be utilized directly, strengthening practical skills and community building before students even enter the professional world. And the Open Door Clinic was open to facilitating that learning.

At first, Sudibyo was hesitant to establish a partnership due to possible ethical concerns within the medical field. However, one of her students in the first cohort of the class was a student coordinator for Open Door Clinic and was able to connect Sudibyo with the clinic, which assured her that the clinic itself was a learning space where students could build real-life experience and help patients in any capacity.

“I think the beautiful thing about the clinic is that it’s very community-centered. Everyone is volunteering,” said Sudibyo. “If you’re working in the healthcare professions, you’re serving a community, and you need to know who the community members are.”

Currently, the class is only offered at one intermediate level of Spanish in the fall semesters. In the future, Sudibyo hopes that she can get a second level to keep volunteers connected with the Open Door Clinic during the spring semester, both further building the students’ language skills and growing their connection to Â鶹ĘÓƵ’s surrounding community.

“A university as an institution can sometimes feel very disconnected with the community that it is in,” said Sudibyo. “I think it is important for students to know the stories of the people who are living around campus. It’s an important thing to bridge that gap between higher education and the community.”

For Spanish students interested in connecting their language learning with service in the local Alamance area but may be intimidated by using the language in hands-on situations, this class offers a supportive and connected environment and strongly emphasizes its two meaningful purposes: serving the surrounding community and learning to utilize the Spanish language.

“If you struggle with speaking up and speaking Spanish to other people, it can be difficult, but at the same time, it’s difficult for a reason. Learning a language is always difficult,” said Nunez. “It’s okay to be nervous, but you’re gonna do a lot better than you think. There’s people there supporting you.”

And that was a challenge. Because I entered college in 2003, at the beginning of the war in Iraq, when everyone and their grandmother was convinced that learning Arabic was the ticket to getting a job in government. At the school I went to, all students were preregistered for classes with the exception of first-year students and graduate students, who had to attend classes before they could register. All classes were required to leave three seats open for first years and graduate students. So, I showed up to the first day of Beginning I Arabic along with 70 other students, all hoping to get one of those three seats. The instructor announced that he would not allow anyone to register for those three seats until there were only three students left in the class who wanted them. And so I proceeded to wait the rest of them out. I came to every class and did all the work in the class, without any guarantee that I would get in officially or get credit for it until enough people gave up that I was offered the slot. So the first thing I learned in my college career was that I would have to fight for the Humanities and they were worth fighting for. I am still doing that work today.

But aside from Arabic, I really didn’t know what else I wanted to study. So I started off by studying everything. I took classes in history, and political science, and anthropology, and comparative literature. And calculus, and biology, and Religious Studies. And they were all great classes, but I found that I had a particular love of that place where religion, history, literature, and philosophy met and connected. Those classes lit a fire in me. Because they showed me that in places and periods and languages that were wholly different from my own people had grappled with the questions that provoked and haunted me, questions of deep existential meaning and ongoing political urgency – and that they had expressed their answers in language that was profoundly beautiful. When I studied those answers, I found myself connected to peoples, movements, and cultures larger myself.  And as I went deeper and deeper into my studies, I found that they were changing me. Once I learned how to read deeply, I found that I could read anything, including the social and political institutions in which I was embedded. I learned to question everything, and to produce my own critical answers. I put myself to work imagining other, better worlds.

The period that I grew up in was really not perfect. I went to college – and then lived in the Middle East – during the Iraq War. A war of choice, when the President decided to invade a country that posed no threat to the United States, largely to secure access to vast oil resources. I then graduated from college into a massive financial disaster caused by the loosening of banking regulations so that very rich people could become even richer. So I can’t say that it was an easy time to be a young person – if there is ever an easy time to be a young person.

But I do think that it is much harder to be a young person today. I went through college at a time when few students had personal laptops, before the invention of the smart phone or the ipad or the rise of social media. The students I went to school with didn’t all like me – but they were all really present along with me in the spaces we shared. The political culture at the time seemed divisive, but it was nothing in comparison to the chaos and fury of the current age. It’s hard right now y’all.

But one of the things that is making it even harder is that the institutions and entities who are invested in dividing us from each other, in fracturing our attention and undermining our interpersonal relationships – are also selling us a particular approach to knowledge. This approach is, “the extractive attitude.” It is based on the idea that the purpose of knowledge is to extract resources from the environment and money from the economy – which ultimately means from consumers. This attitude is not new. I know from my own field of African history that the European governments who colonized various territories sent scholars out in the wake of the armies, geographers and engineers to survey and map the land, and linguists and anthropologists to learn languages, and catalogue customs. The purpose of these colonial scholar-soldiers was to facilitate the pacification of the population and the extraction of natural resources. Knowledge has always been a form of power. And then, just as now, deep engagement in storytelling, religious worldviews, and philosophy was disregarded and rejected as impractical. Education, according to the extractive attitude, is a product whose value measured as a return on investment. This attitude invites us to use learning to maintain a position in cultural and class warfare.

The opposite of the extractive attitude is a humanistic attitude. A humanistic attitude values knowledge for its ability to bring meaning and joy into our lives and our communities. A humanistic attitude evaluates our present relative to both our past and our vision of the future. A humanistic attitude is an approach that finds richness and complexity in things that seem simple. And it does those things through a deep engagement with the ideas and the art that have been produced by humans through the ages.

When I went to college I had to fight for a seat in a language class against the forces of opportunism. And I want you to fight for humanism, too. And it is a fight sometimes. A fight to maintain vision and resolve in the face of a thousand messages that tell us that the humanistic attitude is “useless.” The makers and marketers of new technological products are trying to convince us to give up our capacity for deep engagement. To give up our ability to generate ideas, to read literature, to think about the past, to make and appreciate art and culture, and to communicate with each other. To convince us to give up on humanism they threaten us with catastrophe and apocalypse. They warn that their products will change society so deeply that it will be unrecognizable, or that they might destroy humanity entirely. But I have my own message. For anyone who is worried about understanding these forces, or who is struggling to make sense of the world right now – the Humanities can help.

Those of us in Religious Studies have studied apocalyptic predictions, we know the distance between what they promise and what they deliver. Those of us in History have studied revolutions and know how politics and new forms of media align. Those of us in World Languages and Cultures know that our understanding of the world is shaped by language and how to connect with people across cultural differences. Those of us in Philosophy know that the potential for meaningful change is rooted in examination and reflection.  And those of us in English know (to paraphrase James Baldwin), that it is literature that teaches us that the things that torment us the most are the very things that connect us with all the people who are alive, or who have ever lived. The Humanities are a repository of our shared humanity and the heart of our capacity to be, not just human, but better humans. More than ever, humanity needs the Humanities. And right now, the Humanities needs you.

Â鶹ĘÓƵ has been repeatedly recognized for the number of its alumni who participate in the Fulbright Program as teachers, graduate students, and researchers and has been named a top-producer of Fulbright students in six separate years. Students and alumni interested in the Fulbright Program or other nationally competitive fellowships are invited to contact the National and International Fellowships Office. The deadline to notify the office of your intent to apply for Fulbright in this upcoming cycle is June 1, 2026. Rising seniors are required to work with the National and International Fellowships Office to apply for Fulbright, and alumni are highly encouraged to do so.

Those who received awards this year are:

Azul Bellot ’26

Azul Bellot, a double major in psychology and sociolinguistics with a minor in TESOL, has received a Fulbright grant to teach English in Spain. She is The Â鶹ĘÓƵ Commitment scholar in the Odyssey Program and a student scholar with The Center for Engaged Learning.

Bellot has been preparing for an experience like Fulbright long before she arrived at Â鶹ĘÓƵ. Reflecting on her early years, she says, “Growing up as the daughter of Mexican immigrants, I was my family’s translator from a young age. I navigated formal systems, adult conversations, and bureaucratic spaces in both English and Spanish long before I had the language to describe what that experience was doing to me. It gave me a deep understanding of what it means for language to be a gateway, and what it costs when that gateway is closed.”

These formative years laid the groundwork for her time at Â鶹ĘÓƵ, where she developed her own independent sociolinguistics major, volunteered as an English tutor for children and adults, and conducted research on meaningful mentoring relationships. To Bellot, a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship in Spain is “the most honest intersection of everything [she’s] been working towards: language, identity, education, and community.”

After Fulbright, Bellot plans to pursue more international fellowships before returning to academia to earn her PhD in Applied Linguistics. Her Â鶹ĘÓƵ mentors include Archie Crowley, assistant professor of English; Nina Namaste, professor of Spanish; and Sylvia Muñoz, assistant dean of students and director for the Center for Race, Ethnicity and Diversity Education.

Anya Bratić ’26

Anya Bratić, a double major in international & global Studies and public policy with a minor in public health, has received a Fulbright grant to teach English in Vietnam. She is an Â鶹ĘÓƵ College Fellow, a Periclean Scholar, and the Student Government Association Student Body President.

To Bratić, Fulbright represents the intersection of her two greatest passions: global engagement and teaching. She found ways to blend these passions during her time at Â鶹ĘÓƵ. As a Periclean Scholar, she had the opportunity to study abroad in India to understand what mutually beneficial relationships look like in practice, not just in theory. As a student consultant with the Center for Design Thinking, she developed a love for teaching and facilitation, specifically the challenge of guiding others through the structured process of finding meaningful solutions to “wicked” problems. Serving as an English teaching assistant will allow her to refine her intercultural and teaching skills while strengthening diplomatic relations between the United States and Vietnam.

After Fulbright, Bratić is interested in pursuing a career in diplomacy or global social impact. “Simply put, I want to work at the intersection of people, policy and purpose,” she says. Bratić’s constellation of Â鶹ĘÓƵ mentors includes Amanda Tapler, associate teaching professor of public health studies; Safia Swimelar, professor of political science and public policy; Sean McMahon, professor of entrepreneurship; and Danielle Lake, director of design thinking and associate professor of human service studies.

Molly Moylan ’26

Biochemistry major Molly Moylan has received a Fulbright grant to teach English in Spain.

At Â鶹ĘÓƵ, Moylan took every opportunity to foster and blend her passions for STEM research, teaching and service. As a researcher, Moylan worked with chemistry professor Dan Wright to study trace metals within medicinal herbs and spices. She refined her teaching skills by serving with America Reads, the Village Project, the CityGate Dream Center, and more. Most notably, Moylan found a way to combine her passions by co-founding Imagine Science, a program designed to address declining student engagement in science education by bringing hands-on experiments and activities to local after-school programs.

In Spain, Moylan will serve as an English Teaching Assistant in Galicia, a region that is especially interested in promoting students’ scientific thinking skills. This Fulbright year will serve as crucial preparation for Moylan as she applies to medical school. The language and cultural skills she will gain in Spain will allow her to better serve Spanish-speaking patients in the future.

Moylan’s most influential Â鶹ĘÓƵ mentor has been Assistant Professor of Chemistry Dan Wright. “Dr. Dan Wright has been instrumental in my success at Â鶹ĘÓƵ,” she said. “Through his continued support, my confidence in both my personal and professional capacities has grown immensely, and I am extremely grateful to have had him as a mentor.”

Madison Powers ’25

Madison Powers, who graduated in 2025 with a degree in journalism and a minor in Spanish, has received a Fulbright grant to teach English in Spain. At Â鶹ĘÓƵ, Powers was a communications fellow and a 2023 Pulitzer reporting fellow. Since graduating, she has served as an editorial intern at Garden & Gun Magazine in Charleston, South Carolina.

Powers has long had her sights set on a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship in Spain. During her undergraduate years, she spent a semester in Sevilla and fostered her dual passions for cross-cultural exchange and global education. Eager to return, she applied for Fulbright in last year’s application cycle and was named a semifinalist. She remained so committed to the value of a Fulbright experience that she chose to reapply this year, and her hard work and persistence paid off.

Powers will serve as an English teaching assistant in Madrid. She is excited to live and work in a large, diverse city while improving her Spanish language skills and forming connections with her community. Serving in Madrid will also allow her to work closely with students on Global Classrooms/Model UN projects, which are important to the development of their critical thinking and cross-cultural skills.

This Fulbright year will serve as a bridge between Powers’ current and future journalistic work. Upon returning to the U.S, she plans to work as a journalist reporting on and working in Spanish-speaking communities. Her Â鶹ĘÓƵ mentors include Kelly Furnas, associate teaching professor of journalism; Jan Register, administrative assistant for the Truitt Center for Religious and Spiritual Life; and Pablo Celis-Castillo, associate professor of Spanish.

Aryanna Vindas ’25

Aryanna Vindas, a graduate of the class of 2025, has received a Fulbright grant to teach English in South Korea. She graduated with a BFA in Dance Performance and Choreography and a minor in Asian studies.

Serving as an English teaching assistant in South Korea is a natural extension of the work Vindas began at Â鶹ĘÓƵ. She completed a two-year undergraduate research project about Korean Buddhist mindfulness, studied abroad for a semester in South Korea, and undertook a rigorous course of Korean language study. Simultaneously, she developed her teaching skills by serving as a volunteer English teacher, tutoring Spanish, and leading and assisting dance classes.

Because her grant does not begin until January 2027, Vindas has chosen to go above and beyond to prepare. She will spend this summer in South Korea completing intensive language study at Yonsei University in Seoul, which will help her integrate more successfully into her future host community and build more meaningful relationships with her students.

After Fulbright, Vindas plans to enroll in graduate school to continue the research on Buddhist mindfulness she began at Â鶹ĘÓƵ. Vindas’ Â鶹ĘÓƵ mentors include Renay Aumiller, associate professor of dance; the “wonderful” dance staff; and Pamela Winfield, professor of religious studies and associate director of international & global studies.

In addition to these students, one senior has been named an alternate. Alternates are still in the competition and have the chance to be promoted to finalists (recipients of the grant) up until the official start of the grant period. We will update this story as we continue to hear news of their progress.

Rebecca Lovasco ’26

Rebecca Lovasco, a psychology major with minors in women’s, gender, and sexuality studies and neuroscience, has been selected as an alternate for a Fulbright study/research grant in Taiwan to earn a master’s degree in Mind, Brain, and Consciousness at Taipei Medical University.

Lovasco is an Â鶹ĘÓƵ College Fellow who went on to win the Lumen Prize. Her research, which integrates cognitive neuroscience, clinical psychology, and philosophy of mind, explores how anxiety and depression affect reinforcement learning and conscious visual perception. Outside of her research, Lovasco is proud to have served as a law enforcement crisis counselor with the Campus Alamance program.

Lovasco’s Â鶹ĘÓƵ mentors include Kristina Krasich, assistant professor of psychology; William Schreiber, associate professor of psychology; Kim Epting, professor of psychology; Alexa Darby, professor of psychology; and Jill McSweeney, assistant director of the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning and assistant professor of wellness.

Smith Elementary School transformed into a vibrant international showcase during Global Week as university professors offered a cultural event connecting local students and their families with cultures and languages from around the world.

The event, organized by Mayte de Lama, associate professor of Spanish, featured a series of interactive tables, each representing a different country or culture. Faculty members Shereen Elgamal, Federico Pous, Ketevan Kupatadze, Mayte de Lama, Ricky Mendoza, Samuele Pardini, Bethanny Sudibyo, along with French majors CĂ©cile Charron and Noelle Murray and with French minor Julia Canto, volunteered their time to create engaging experiences. Together, they offered children and their families an opportunity to explore communities from across the globe. Rod Salazar, owner of IrazĂş Coffee, also contributed his time, expertise and coffee beans by helping bring Costa Rican culture to life.

Each table was thoughtfully curated with authentic materials. Visitors could browse children’s books in different languages, learn to write basic characters, and participate in hands-on activities such as traditional games and crafts. Colorful displays of photographs, artifacts and clothing provided insight into daily life and cultural celebrations, while snacks and sweets offered a literal taste of each culture and reinforced language learning. At several tables, families gathered as professors demonstrated how to write in non-Latin alphabets, sparking curiosity and excitement among young learners. Children who completed their journey across the different countries received stamps in a “passport,” which they later exchanged for a prize.

Families, teachers, and staff expressed strong appreciation for the opportunity to “travel” and learn together in an interactive and accessible setting. By bringing university professors into the elementary school community, the event created a meaningful bridge between higher education and early learning.

On November 20, 2025 students and faculty gathered in Carlton Commons to watch and participate in two theatre performances created by Associate Professor of Spanish Federico Pous’ Spanish 4500 Innovation/Social Protest Theatre Class.

Associate Professor of Spanish Pablo Celis-Castillo’s SPN3300 “Spanish Speaking World Through Media” class was in attendance, as well as Associate Dean of Â鶹ĘÓƵ College David Buck and Associate Professor of Spanish Nina Namaste.

The performance was “forum theater,” an interactive performance that centers around a social issue. After watching the performance, audience members are asked questions about the issue they saw and how to solve it, and they are then invited to join the scene, replacing an actor and changing the way their character handles the situation.

The class is composed of nine students who performed two plays entirely in Spanish. The first group of students’ performance was centered around feminism. The production, titled “We Can Do It,” centers around a college class where two boys do not contribute to the group project, and the girls are forced to do all the work and are given lower scores than the boys. Throughout the theatre performance, the girls try to figure out how to get justice.

The second performance, titled “First Word, Last Day,” takes place in an office, where a new female employee learns quickly that she is silenced whenever she voices her suggestions in a male-dominated advertising company, where she feels that “they are a team and I am alone.” In this performance, the other employees dismiss her idea and presence, which makes the work environment unpleasant and extra difficult for her to feel valued in. The boss dismisses her idea saying, “You’re new and don’t have much experience, listen to him and listen to me.”

Both performances depicted misogynistic issues that can arise in both academic and professional settings. Professor Pous engaged the audience by asking thought-provoking questions to examine these systems of power critically. He asked, “What was the conflict?” followed by “What do you think could solve it?”

After the discussion, audience members were invited to step in and replace the problematic character in a scene that they wished to change. In the first play, an audience member volunteered to support one of the female group members to talk to the professor and confront her male counterparts. In the second play, two audience members stepped in, one replacing a passive coworker and the other replacing the boss.

Several audience members participated in each of the performances, replacing characters and changing various scenes in an attempt to solve the issue originally presented. Many creative ideas were presented, which led to engaging discussions about the social issues presented.

The National Collegiate Hispanic Honor Society, Sigma Delta Pi, recognizes students who excel in the study of the Spanish language, literature and cultures—and who foster understanding, appreciation and respect for the Spanish-speaking world. Its motto, Spanías Didagéi Proágomen, means “to continue under the inspiration of the Spanish language.”

Eighteen students were inducted into Â鶹ĘÓƵ’s Rho Eta chapter during a ceremony on Wednesday, Nov. 5, at 5:30 p.m. in Lakeside (2nd floor). The event was a team effort planned and organized by Assistant Teaching Professor Ricardo Mendoza, Program Assistant Annetta Womble (World Languages and Cultures & Interdisciplinary Programs), WLC student assistants, WLC faculty and students, and community collaborators Raquel Johanna Giraldo and Helen McLeod.

The ceremony was led by Ricardo Mendoza, assistant teaching professor and president of the Rho Eta chapter, and presided over by Â鶹ĘÓƵ students Stephanie Mirsky and Izzy Greenstein. Alumna MacKenzie Martinez ’21 offered words of encouragement, sharing how Spanish has shaped her professional path in border-region advocacy. Martinez, a proud Jewish Chicana from Richmond, Virginia, double-majored in Spanish and Anthropology with minors in Gender Studies and Latin American Studies. She has served with Al Otro Lado and the International Rescue Committee and is currently Advancement Manager at Alliance San Diego.

The program featured live music by Raquel Johanna Giraldo (Colombia). Parents, relatives and friends joined the celebration via Zoom. WLC faculty Ketevan Kupatadze, April Post, Nina Namaste, Mayte de Lama, Bethanny Sudibyo, Pablo Celis-Castillo, Federico Pous and Ricardo Mendoza participated and shared remarks with the inductees.

Congratulations to the Fall 2025 inductees:
Faith Almond, Sofie Cate Suzanne Crabbe, Lindsey Grace Dwyer, Miranda Justine Fitch, Jinelle Alexa Gonzalez, Olivia Christine Guarino, Erin Elena Howard, Natalie Hudson, Ella Kathryn Kinman, John Cooper Carlos Ludlow, Archibald Meskhidze, Logan Marlene Miller, Samuel Potter Montgomery, Molly Moylan, Allison Orozco Rosaldo, Annabelle Kay Richardson, Logan McAdam Scott and Amelia Summers.

Eligibility: To join Sigma Delta Pi, students must complete three years of college-level Spanish (18 semester hours) or the equivalent, including at least three credit hours at the junior level in Hispanic literature or Hispanic culture/civilization.

She presented the work of the Diocesan Commission for the Defense of Nature (CODIDENA), an organization that advocates for the restoration of the identity and spirituality of the Xinka Indigenous people of Central America while protecting nature against extractivist mega-projects. Lemus talked in detail about the case of the peaceful resistance to the Escobal mining project, and their everyday struggles against the government and the mining corporations.

During the talk, she shared the values of her community to protect the earth and how they recognize themselves as Xinka by recovering their language and their culture. She also expressed the difficult reality faced by her community in rural areas as well as the challenges faced by organizers advocating for the Xinka land rights. The talk explored how they were able to stop the development of the mining project after three years of struggle, based on the Indigenous and Tribal People Convention, an international agreement acknowledged by the International Labour Organization, in which indigenous people must be consulted in case of any project affecting their population. In this case, after consulting with the Xinka people, they decided to reject the mining project given the multiple threats to their health and the environment.

Lemus also showed her grassroots initiative with young scientists in the Xinka community to address water contamination issues provoked by mining operations. This project not only capacitates the new generations, but also advocates for an intergenerational collective growth of the whole Xinka people. As a result of this initiative, community members created a system for measuring the degree of contamination in the water, empowering communities to defend themselves in their fight for environmental justice.

Over 50people attended the event. Students from peace and conflict studies, Latin American studies, as well as from different Spanish courses, the Core Curriculum, and philosophy classes learned about the complexity of current environmental struggles in Guatemala. After the talk, students asked several questions regarding the role of the Guatemalan government in this conflict and the recognition of the Xinka identity, engaging in a very fruitful dialogue about the importance of advocating for indigenous rights and environmental justice in peaceful demonstrations. The conference was conducted in Spanish with interpretation performed by Emily Rhyne from the organization Witness for Peace.

Lemus also participated in a roundtable discussion in Spanish with other human rights activists at El Centro. The roundtable focused on Guatemalan history and cultural diversity, generating a constructive dialogue among students learning about Latin American indigenous identities. The speakers talked about the work of their organizations at the local, national and global level, emphasizing the need to construct strong networks of solidarity. Students from the Spanish program engaged in a vivid conversation during the event, learning about the intercultural richness of Central America and the political relevance of the region in relation with the U.S. government today.

This visit was co-organized by the Peace and Conflict Studies program and the Latin American Studies program, and it was sponsored by the Department of World Languages and Cultures; El Centro; the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning; International and Global Studies; Isabella Cannon Global Education Center; Women’s, Gender, and Sexualities Studies; the Department of Philosophy; and the Department of Sociology and Anthropology.

This cohort of eight upper-level Spanish students–Raquel Berrocal de Castro, Ally Cisar, Lorenzo Tibolla, Merritt Edwards, Hunter Siegel, Izzy Greenstein, Tobias Coker and Anne Rhodes, all in Professor Pous’ class, had spent the previous month immersing themselves in the history and functions of participatory theatre. Also called Forum Theatre, this concept of theatrical performance sprung out of the “Theatre of the Oppressed” movement in 1970s Brazil (Augusto Boal).

Forum Theatre seeks to bring attention to relevant social issues and themes through a 5-10 minute sketch followed by an open conversation with audience members about what the social conflict represented. Lastly, the audience members are invited onstage, where they have the opportunity to engage directly with the material by replacing an actor of their choice and bringing in a different interpretation/action/solution to any scene they choose. The original and newfound actors then improvise the rest of the scene to flush out different nuances, choices, and directions the play can take.

Pous’ students fully wrote and produced two, approximately 10 minute works. “Una familia perfecta,” or “A Perfect Family” focused on conflict and family dynamics after a recent college graduate moved back into her house while “Dinero o moralidad” or “Money or Morality” explored questions of morality through a graduating college senior balancing a job offer from the industrial weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin.

Both of these plays were developed to engage the audience with universal situations of conflict and morality so that they could discuss these issues, think about how they would respond, then gain the opportunity to go in and bring their perspectives to the conversation through acting.

The student performers were enthused to bring their course themes of examining the Magical Realist literary movement’s mixing of reality, imagination, history and magic to the stage.

“Fede’s class about Magic Realism really ties to participatory theatre,” said Hunter Siegel. “They are both about how people use imagination and theatre, whether through literature, movies, TV, music, or plays to reflect, process, and give commentary on real-world situations that could otherwise be more difficult or painful to face without a creative or imaginative medium. Putting on this play has not only been a lot of fun and a big accomplishment, I am glad to have seen the participants engaging in discussion about useful themes and maybe learning more about themselves in the process.”

The audience members were also enthused to see and participate in this project.

“I had so much fun attending Teatro Foro,” said Emma Kennedy. “I loved that it was all about controversial topics related to experiences we have as college students. It was easy to understand everything going on and the students were expressive actors! The interactive element was so much fun because it really made me think about the situation and how I might resolve it.”

Fifteen students were inducted into Sigma Delta Pi Chapter Rho Eta Hispanic Honor Society during a ceremony held on Tuesday, Nov. 12 in the Numen Lumen Pavilion’s McBride Gathering Space.

The ceremony is a team effort, planned and organized by Lecturer in Spanish Ricardo Mendoza, Program Assistant for World Languages and Cultures and Interdisciplinary Programs Ronnie LoCash, WLC student assistants, WLC professors and students and members of the community Oscar Oviedo and Helen McLeod.

The Sigma Delta Pi Honor Society recognizes students who foster an understanding, appreciation and respect for the peoples, cultures and societies of the Spanish-speaking world, and honors those who have promoted and contributed to a better understanding of the Spanish-speaking world for all.

The honor society’s motto – Spanías Didagéi Proágomen – means to “continue under the inspiration of the Spanish language.”

The ceremony was led by Lecturer in Spanish and President of the Hispanic Honor Society Sigma Delta Pi Chapter Rho Eta Ricardo Mendoza and was presided over by Â鶹ĘÓƵ students Camilla Bondy, Merritt Edwards, Pheriby Bryan and Lorenzo Tibolla. The induction ceremony included words of encouragement from Â鶹ĘÓƵ alumni Ethan Krone ’23, who lives and works in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Krone shared how he is using Spanish to make a difference in the lives of others.

There was live music from Oscar Oviedo, who is from Colombia, and parents, relatives and friends of the new inductees were able to participate through Zoom. Finally, WLC faculty members Elena Schoonmaker-Gates, Mina GarcĂ­a, Bethany Sudibyo, Federico Pous and Ricardo Mendoza shared words of advice for the inductees.

Congratulations to the newest inductees of Sigma Delta Pi Fall 2024:

Sarah Caroline Allen 
Virginia Isabel Campbell 
Samantha Coleman
Jillian Dolman
Kyla Joy Farrell
Anna Marie Grupp
Anna Riley Gutierrez
Lucy Julia Horn
Claire Marie Jablonski
Emily Maher
Ryan John Maier
Stephanie May Mirsky
Annabelle Marie Roberts
Devon Elizabeth Sweeney
Annelise Weaver

To join Sigma Delta Pi, students must have completed three years of college-level Spanish (18 semester credit hours) or the equivalent thereof, including at least three semester hours of a course in Hispanic literature or Hispanic culture and civilization at the junior (third-year) level.

During their visit, the Â鶹ĘÓƵ community had the opportunity to view GuĂ©rette’s film “L’audience” (The Hearing) which documents a Congolese family’s journey immigrating to Canada. The screening was followed by a Q and A session with Carballo and GuĂ©rette. Both visitors spoke extensively about their experience with the Canadian immigration system and the process of applying and being granted refugee status in Canada. Â鶹ĘÓƵ students and faculty also enjoyed conversations with Carballo who offered insights about her experience as a writer, translator and interpreter, as well as an immigrant.

Both Carballo and GuĂ©rette graciously spoke to classes and interacted with Â鶹ĘÓƵ students. This was a wonderful opportunity to engage students with diverse voices and perspectives on immigration narratives.

The visits were made possible by the generous support from and collaboration with the Fund for Excellence Grunt from Â鶹ĘÓƵ College, the College of Arts and Sciences, Sigma Delta Pi Honor Society, Global Neighborhood and the Department of World Languages and Cultures.