Month: January 2018

Rosa M. Pillcurima, originally from Quito, Ecuador, joined the faculty in January 2018 as a new Lecturer of Spanish. She earned her B.A. in Spanish from the State University of New York at Geneseo and her M.A. in Foreign Languages and Literatures with a concentration in Spanish from Iona College. Prior to coming to Clemson, she taught Spanish at SUNY Geneseo and at the University of Florida. In her free time, Rosa enjoys traveling, cooking, reading and visiting museums.

One of the signature offerings in the Department of Languages is the Language and International Health B.S. for those students interested in pursuing health-related careers. This program is jointly administered with the Department of Public Health Sciences in the College of Behavioral, Social and Health Sciences.

The L&IH major pairs a modern language concentration with coursework in public health theory and practice. The language component emphasizes linguistic and cultural proficiency in the target language by studying specific peoples, cultures, literatures, technical language, health environments, and multicultural issues. The public health component includes the history and philosophy of public health and medicine; the organization, management, and financing of health services; and the social and behavioral aspects of health, epidemiology, health evaluation methods, and health communications. Students choose an emphasis area in either Health Administration or Community Development.

Spring 2018 marks the first semester that a French track is available in addition to the Spanish and Chinese tracks. As with the other tracks, L&IH-French students must study abroad for at least one semester and complete an internship in a French-speaking health-care setting. However, any student who has completed intermediate French can also enroll in L&IH-French courses even if they are not pursuing the major.

Lecturer of French Anne-Carole Salces y Nedeo teaches the new French for Health Professionals courses. “Learning a foreign language is not only beneficial to those who want to work abroad,” she says. “Learning a foreign language is opening one’s mind to something new; it’s seeing the world through somebody else’s eyes. This is a priceless skill which has become increasingly necessary to acquire in our modern world. I am glad to see Clemson University taking steps in that direction, by trying to become more internationally oriented, and I am proud to be part of it! I hope to see more and more students seize this opportunity which, without a doubt, will make them better healthcare providers and administrators.”

Senior Lecturer of Spanish Scott Harris retired in December 2017. His retirement marks the end of a 30-year career in the Department of Languages, where he began teaching in January 1988.

Harris earned his B.A. in Spanish and his M.A.T. in Secondary Education in Spanish from the University of South Carolina. Although he was trained to teach high school, he enjoyed teaching college much more. After graduating, he taught at Furman University for two years before coming to Clemson.

At Clemson, Harris taught elementary and intermediate levels of Spanish and served on various committees, including the President’s Council for Community and Diversity and the Declamation Committee. He also served as the Scheduler and Registration Coordinator for the department for many years.

Of his most memorable activities at Clemson, Harris said, “Over the years I enjoyed the Southern Circuit Film showings and have greatly missed that program since its recent departure. I was also proud to be involved in the founding of the Lambda Society, the first gay-straight alliance organization, back in the early 90s here at Clemson.”

Harris will be greatly missed by his colleagues in the department, who feted him at a retirement party in December. Department Chair Salvador Oropesa described Harris as the “electricity” of the department, while CAAH Dean Richard Goodstein called him the “glue.” Other attendees reminisced about their time working with Harris.

Congratulations, Scott!

Students Jesse Bynum, Hannah Cheeks, Alex Ekam, Chelsea Jennings, and Aidan Reuland participated in the Creative Inquiry project titled “Individual versus Systems in Cinema” offered by Dr. Graciela Tissera. The project explored a selection of movies from world-renowned Hispanic film directors to analyze confrontations between individuals and systems while establishing a theoretical framework for the research. The analyses focused on the complex human relationships portrayed inside and outside systems related to a wide array of social, political, psychological, cultural, and metaphysical topics. Students presented thought-provoking themes such as overcoming imposed limits, survival strategies, and the search for truth and justice in the following movies: Box 507 (Spain, 2002) by Enrique Urbizu, Sleep Dealer (Mexico-US, 2008) by Alex Rivera, The Mouth of the Wolf (Peru, 1988) by Franciso Lombardi, City of God (Brazil, 2002) by Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund, and Betibú (Argentina, 2014) by Miguel Cohan.