This year's Varg-Sullivan Endowed Graduate Award winners are Vadu Rodrigues, an MFA Candidate in Studio Art who is the 2025 Outstanding Achievement in the Arts recipient, and Hyun-Bin Hwang, who recently earned his Ph.D. in Second Language Studies and was named the 2025 Outstanding Achievement in the Letters recipient. The Varg-Sullivan Endowed Graduate Awards, presented by the College of Arts…
Shawn Loewen, Professor in the Department of Linguistics, Languages, and Cultures at Michigan State University, received a 2025 PROSE Award from the Association of American Publishers (AAP) for his co-authored textbook, A Practical Guide to Second Language Teaching and Learning. The 2025 PROSE Awards recognize the very best professional and scholarly works published in 2024 in the United States in five areas of excellence.
Four professors from the Department of Linguistics, Languages, and Cultures at Michigan State University are among the top 2% of scientists in the world, according to Stanford University’s latest World’s Top 2% Scientists list, which identifies scholars who are top-cited in their respective fields.
Elizabeth Mittman, Associate Professor of German in the Department of Linguistics, Languages, and Cultures at Michigan State University, is the 2023 recipient of the MSU Award for Outstanding Service to Education Abroad, which recognizes faculty and staff who give their time, energy, and creativity to the development and implementation of education abroad programs that support MSU's commitment to providing students with high-quality international education opportunities.…
J. Dylan Burton, a doctoral candidate in the Second Language Studies (SLS) Ph.D. program at Michigan State University, received a 2023 Graduate Student Award from the American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL). Each year, this merit-based award recognizes 20 students from across the country based on the quality of a written proposal for a poster or a paper. Burton’s primary research interests center around…
Yingzhao Chen, a Ph.D. candidate in MSU’s Second Language Studies (SLS) and Cognitive Science programs, is one of only six doctoral students from across the country to receive a $5,000 Duolingo Research Grant.
While millions of people study English around the world, many students have limited exposure to spoken and written English outside the classroom. Researchers like Michigan State University’s Shawn Loewen examine ways to maximize classroom instruction to improve second language acquisition. Loewen was invited to share this expertise as a Fulbright Scholar at a historic Polish university. From October 2021 to…
Shawn Loewen knows what it’s like to learn a second language through “blood, sweat, and tears.” He started taking private Spanish lessons when he was 13 and studied Spanish and French all through high school. Passionate about language learning, he majored in Language and Linguistics in college and decided to become a teacher and research scholar. Today, Loewen is a…
Each year, the College of Arts & Letters presents two Varg-Sullivan Endowed Graduate Awards to graduate students for their outstanding achievement in the arts or letters. This year’s winners are Jessica Stokes, Outstanding Achievement in the Arts recipient, and Bronson Hui, Outstanding Achievement in the Letters recipient. Paul Varg and Richard Sullivan are former Deans of the College of Arts…
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…