Department of Languages

Faculty member wins national Japanese teaching award

Jae Takeuchi, assistant professor of Japanese, who has been awarded the Hamako Ito Chaplin Memorial Award for excellence in Japanese language teaching at the college level. The national award, administered through the Association for Asian Studies, is given to only one or two instructors of Japanese each year.

Faculty news, Fall 2017

Daniel Holcombe

Stephen Fitzmaurice, assistant professor of ASL, published “Best Practices for Educational Interpreters in South Carolina,” a technical assistance resource for the South Carolina Department of Education Office of Special Education Services. He was also featured in the Member Spotlight of the national Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf. Alma García-Rodríguez, lecturer of Spanish, received her Ph.D. […]

New lecturer of Spanish joins faculty in Spring 2018

Rosa Pillcurima

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, […]

Longtime faculty member Scott Harris retires

(L-R) Dean Richard Goodstein, Scott Harris, and Department Chair Salvador Oropesa at the retirement party. (Photo courtesy of Su-I Chen.)

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 […]

Department hosts 45th Annual Declamation Contest

Declamation participants

On October 21, 2017, the Department of Languages hosted the 45th Annual Declamation Contest. This poetry recitation contest brings together middle- and high-school students from the region, who come to the Clemson campus for the day to show off their language skills. This year, 490 students from 31 middle and high schools in South Carolina, Georgia, […]

Faculty member wins interpreter award

Congratulations to Jason Hurdich, lecturer of ASL, the recipient of the Marie Griffin Interpreter of the Year Award. The award was presented on October 10 at the Southeast Regional Institute On Deafness (SERID) conference. SERID covers the entire area of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. The award is presented […]

Faculty news, Spring and Summer 2017

Yanming An

Yanming An, professor of Chinese and philosophy, received the College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities (CAAH) John B. and Thelma A. Gentry Award for Teaching Excellence in the Humanities. Established by Frank and Sarah Gentry to honor Mr. Gentry’s parents, John and Thelma Gentry, this peer-reviewed award recognizes an outstanding humanities faculty member and provides an annual […]

New faculty, Fall 2017

The Department of Languages welcomed the following new faculty members at the beginning of the Fall 2017 semester. Bo Clements, Lecturer of American Sign Language Bo is relocating from Tampa Bay, Florida after having spent 20 years teaching ASL courses at the University of South Florida. As the current President of the Florida American Sign […]

South Carolina’s only Certified Deaf Interpreter joins faculty

Jason Hurdich

The following article appeared in the Independent Mail on August 9: ‘Rock star’ Deaf interpreter to teach ASL at Clemson GEORGIE SILVAROLE When Jason Hurdich served as an interpreter for former Gov. Nikki Haley’s press conferences during Hurricane Matthew, he was told he’d have to quiet down. Apparently, his American Sign Language was just a tad […]

Faculty and students spend summer in Regensburg, Germany

Clemson student Dani Durham at Infineon.

Johannes Schmidt, associate professor of German, visited the OTH Regensburg, a new partner university in Bavaria, Germany, in June 2017. The week was filled with meeting faculty, administrators, and students at the OTH as well as seeing the sights of the medieval historic center of the city. In Regensburg he saw three Clemson students, the […]