Suzanne Evans Wagner isn’t telling people how to talk. She’s here to say that people have options and reasons for talking the way they do. An Associate Professor of Linguistics in MSU’s Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages, Wagner researches the social motivations for language variation and language change. It’s a subject she speaks freely about, providing examples,…
Ruth Nicole Brown has been appointed as the Inaugural Chairperson for the Department of African American and African Studies (AAAS) at Michigan State University, effective July 1, 2020. She currently is an Associate Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies and Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “I’m overjoyed about joining MSU as the Inaugural Chairperson of African…
Associate Professor of Spanish Tony Grubbs has been appointed Chair of the Department of Romance and Classical Studies (RCS) in the College of Arts & Letters at Michigan State University. The five-year appointment is effective August 16, 2020 through August 15, 2025. Dr. Grubbs has been the Interim Chair for the Department of Romance and Classical Studies since August 1,…
After more than a year serving as Acting Interim Chair and then Interim Chair of the Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages, Yen-Hwei Lin has been appointed Chair of the Department. This four-year appointment is effective August 16, 2020, through August 15, 2024. A Professor of Linguistics, Lin served as Acting Interim Chair (November 5, 2018-2019) and…
Shawn Loewen became enamored with languages at age 13 when his parents hired a private tutor to teach him Spanish. Despite his passion for being multilingual, he knew he couldn’t make a living as a professional language learner. But he knew he could teach. A Professor of Second Language Studies, Loewen came to Michigan State University in 2005 to join the…
Jeff Wray and Julian Chambliss, two distinguished professors from Michigan State University's Department of English, joined Russ White on WKAR's MSU Today to talk about their work and how it impacts their students and our evolving society. The conversation began with their thoughts on a challenging time for racial tension on campus. “It has been a challenging year, but in some ways, it's been a typical…
A book co-edited by Department of English Professor Ellen McCallum is among the select few chosen as a “2019 Outstanding Academic Title” by Choice magazine, a monthly publication that offers hundreds of book reviews to help librarians curate and deliver better sources. Each year, Choice magazine puts together a list of Outstanding Academic Titles of books published that year. The 2019 list includes…
Camelia Suleiman, Associate Professor of Arabic Studies in the Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages, has been appointed Interim Director of the College of Arts & Letters Citizen Scholars program, effective January 20, 2020. Suleiman has taught several Citizen Scholars classes since the program first began in fall 2016. The program is designed to prepare the next generation…
Associate Professor Joshua Yumibe is the recipient of the 2019-2020 Katherine Singer Kovács Book Award for his most recent book, Chromatic Modernity: Color, Cinema, and Media of the 1920s, which was published in April 2019 by Columbia University Press. Yumibe, who is a member of the Department of English faculty, will receive this award in April at the 2020 Society of Cinema and Media Studies Annual Conference in Seattle, Washington, along with his co-author, Sarah Street, who is a Professor of Film at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom.
Aimed at preservice teachers, the latest book by Associate Professor Emery Petchauer, titled Navigating Teacher Licensure Exams, explores the different obstacles presented with teacher licensure exams and how to overcome them. These high-stakes exams are what aspiring educators must pass in order to become licensed teachers. The book tackles the issues embedded in the teacher licensure exam in a way that students…