The colloquium will bring together undergraduate students and professors from a wide variety of disciplines.
Spanish language students Ihamna Cubillos, Jason Hartman, Stephanie Kentzel, Kelsi Deel, and Renee Whyte compose the organization committee. Students are also organizing a potluck with Latin American music and a Zumba workout on March 30, from 6-9 p.m. at the Ocoee Street Annex located at 433 Ocoee Street.
The Colloquium presentations will will begin Saturday at 8 a.m. in the Humanities Center, and will focus primarily on the language, literature and culture of Latin America and the Iberian Peninsula. Interdisciplinary submissions will also be accepted from related areas, including service learning and cross-cultural experiences. There will be presenters and attendees from East Tennessee State University, Tennessee Wesleyan College, and Marquette University, as well as presenters from Lee University.
Abstracts and papers, submitted in English and Spanish, will be approximately 10–12 minutes long, presented in a variety of formats. Topics include illegal immigration, Latin American writers, Spanish writers, political issues between the U.S. and Latin America, dictatorships in Latin America, and Christianity in Latin America.
Dr. Rod Fitzgerald, a bilingual diagnostician, will be the featured speaker. His lecture is titled, “I speak a foreign language (a little): What do I do now?”
Fitzgerald will expound on the impact learning a foreign language has had on his professional and personal life and address the topic of career opportunities in foreign language, in the United States and abroad.
Each summer, Fitzgerald teaches the Bilingual Education Methodology course for the Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages minor offered at Lee.
The event is free and open to the public.
For more information please contact the Department of Language and Literature at 423-614-8210 or Dr. Alexander Steffanell by phone (423) 614-8216 or email asteffanell@leeuniversity.edu.
