College Mourns the Passing of Spanish Professor

The College of Arts & Letters at Michigan State University is mourning the passing of Virginia Ruifernández-Conde, an Assistant Professor of Spanish in the Department of Romance and Classical Studies. Ruifernández-Conde also was a graduate of MSU having earned her Ph.D. in Hispanic Cultural Studies from Michigan State University in 2013. She died on Feb. 19, 2024, after a fierce…

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Film Festival Shines Spotlight on Latinx Culture and Global Issues

The MSU Latinx Film Festival (LxFF) is returning this year after a four-year pandemic-induced hiatus. Scheduled for Feb. 15-18 at several different venues across the Michigan State University campus and in the Lansing and East Lansing communities, the 2024 festival will continue its tradition of screening ground-breaking independent cinema from Latin America, Spain, and the United States while shining a cinematic light on various social issues.

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Doctoral Student Researching Female Representation in Latin American Horror Films

Since she was a kid, Ana Patricia Ponce Castañeda has loved horror films and fondly remembers watching scary movies with her mom as she was growing up in Mexico.  Now, a second-year Ph.D. student in the Hispanic Cultural Studies program at Michigan State University, Castañeda has found a way to merge her childhood love of horror with her adult interests…

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Spanish Major Wins Internship Contest, Flown to New Jersey to Present at National Meeting

With knowledge gained from her MSU education and experiences, Hannah Diggs-King, a senior who is double majoring in Marketing and Spanish, won an internship competition for which she was flown to New Jersey to meet with the company CEO and co-presented with him at a national meeting.  This past summer, Diggs-King worked as a Corporate Marketing Intern for Stryker, a medical technology company headquartered in Kalamazoo, Michigan, with locations around the…

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Spanish Professor Awarded Grant to Advance Research on Pronunciation Teaching

Silvina Bongiovanni, Assistant Professor of Spanish in the Department of Romance and Classical Studies at Michigan State University — along with her colleagues from the University of North Carolina-Wilmington, New York University, Illinois-Wesleyan University, and Towson University in Maryland — have received a $50,000 grant from the Spencer Foundation to incorporate perception training into second language pronunciation teaching. The grant…

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2022-2023 Romance and Classical Studies Departmental Awards Presented

The Department of Romance and Classical Studies (RCS) honored its 2022-2023 Departmental Awards recipients during its annual awards ceremony on April 21 in Wells Hall. Several awards and scholarships were presented recognizing students for their outstanding academic achievements this past year. The RCS Department would like to congratulate this year’s award winners for their many accomplishments as students within the…

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MSU Graduate Works Oversees to Achieve Dream of Becoming a Spanish Teacher

Putting aside her work in the United States, Michigan State University 2021 graduate Emily Keller set her sights on Spain where she is now working as a Teaching Assistant helping students learn English as a recipient of a Fulbright U.S. Student Program grant. After receiving her bachelor’s degree in Spanish and Secondary Education, with a minor in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages), Keller was selected among a 9,300-applicant pool to travel abroad through the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. She is one of the six College of Arts…

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College of Arts & Letters Graduate to Receive Honorary Doctoral Degree from MSU

Marta Tienda grew up poor in the inner ring suburbs of Detroit. Her mother died when she was 6, but her father assured her life would be better if she worked hard and finished high school. She listened to her father, an immigrant from Mexico who raised five children in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Alternating between jobs as a factory…

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Romance and Classical Studies Announces 2021-2022 Departmental Awards 

The Department of Romance and Classical Studies (RCS) held its annual awards ceremony on Friday, April 29, in Wells Hall where students of the department were recognized for their hard work and academic achievements and winners were announced for the 2021-2022 departmental awards and scholarships.   The following are the 2021-2022 RCS Department Awards recipients:   Classics Outstanding Student in Classics   Jack…

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Gaining Experience and Confidence While Interning Remotely for Spanish-Based Company

Meg Finerty, a senior Communications and Spanish double major, gained professional work experience that challenged her in unexpected ways while interning with the Spanish-based company, Celpax, which offers a device, called a Daily Pulse, that measures employee morale, giving business leaders a tool for improving the workplace.

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