2022 Newsletter - Introducing our New Colleagues
Our department is pleased to welcome two new members this Fall semester. Ninel Valderrama Negrón, Faculty, and Ana Laura Marques, Portuguese Lecturer, shared their first impressions working at KU:
Ninel Valderrama Negrón
Assistant Professor
In her first year at KU, Dr. Valderrama is teaching SPAN 442 Transpacific Exchanges between Asia and Latin America and SPAN 346 Transatlantic Hispanisms. Her seminars have included a number of activities that have led students outside of the classroom to connect classes with activities at the Spencer Art Museum and Spencer Research Library. She is now working with her students to create the first language labels for the artwork at the Spencer Museum. Over the past year, Dr. Valderrama has been collaborating with a former student, Riya Mohan, to complete a study on the impact of the 1833 cholera outbreak on women of color in Havana. Her study was multidisciplinary in nature, with Mohan's expertise in health policy and Valderrama's understanding of the Havana historical context and archive material at its core. She is looking forward to attending the Society for Global Nineteenth Century Studies' Inaugural World Congress 2023 in Singapore this June.
Ana Laura Marques
Portuguese Lecturer
"Teaching Portuguese at the Spanish and Portuguese Department has been an amazing experience in this Fall semester. Our students are fully committed to their learning and they have a main reason for that: they want it! They want to know more about language and culture. They want to participate in class and in our activities. That´s why teaching at KU challenges me every day. In my brief experience in this semester, I bring for the classes new ways to show and understand the language, with a high level of language exposition, support and a continuous practice. I feel I am learning so much in this process, knowing that teaching and learning a new language is not a simple task.
This semester we have returned the traditional Portuguese conversation sessions, with biweekly meetings on Fridays for students, teachers, researchers, and others interested in speaking Portuguese in a friendly environment. I am very impressed with the good participation we had have in those meetings.
Certainly, the possibilities for expanding the curiosity about Portuguese and Brazilian culture make the Department of Spanish and Portuguese a great space for sharing knowledge."