Looking back over the 2011-2012 academic year, we’re impressed by the stellar record that faculty and students in Baylor’s Modern Foreign Languages department have compiled.
It was an especially good year for Baylor’s Japanese language students. In February, three students were named finalists in the 15th annual Dallas Japanese Speech Contest, hosted by the Dallas Japanese Association and the Japanese Teachers Association of Texas. Ryan Smith, junior language and linguistics major from Temple, was awarded first place; Gus Holdrich, sophomore University Scholar major from Bethesda, Md., was awarded second; and Miki Wang, freshman biology major from El Paso, was named third.
Later in the spring, Gus Holdrich (pictured in a photo by Kinjo Yonemoto) won first place at the Texas State Japanese Speech Contest, beating out students from Texas A&M, the University of Texas and other schools. As part of his first place prize, he received a free round-trip ticket to Japan. Meanwhile, Ryan Smith was awarded a prestigious Critical Language Scholarship to study in Japan during the summer of 2012.
Another Japanese language student, senior Brittany Lozano, decided she wanted to study in Japan and looked for scholarships to help offset the cost. Her efforts paid off when she won the Freeman-ASIA Award, a competitive scholarship to support American undergraduate students who demonstrate need and plan to study in East or Southeast Asia. Brittany will be studying at Hosei University in Tokyo, Japan, during the 2012-2013 academic year, taking courses that focus on Japanese culture. She’s promised to send us a few blog posts during the year to let us know about her adventures.
Japanese is not the only modern foreign language study which Baylor students excelled at during the year. In the fall of 2011, senior Adrien Lavergne of Houston, who studied French with minors in music and film and digital media, was named one of six winners in the national Vista Higher Learning Video Contest. It was Lavergne’s second year to win the foreign language contest, which education publisher Vista Higher Learning designed as an instructional tool for college students.
Lavergne entered a video he scripted featuring himself and a friend sitting on a bench outside the Carroll Science Building on Baylor’s campus. Lavergne’s friend briefly explains the benefits of learning a foreign language, stating, “Everything that you hear is limited by what you understand.” The video closes with the claim, “Everything that you understand and learn profoundly affects your future.”
Finally, Dr. Jennifer L. Good, associate professor of German, was selected to attend the 2012 Baden-Württemberg Seminar for American Faculty in German and German Studies this summer at the University of Tübingen in Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. The Fulbright-sponsored seminar offered professional development to American educators in German studies, including German language, literature, culture, professional education, politics and higher education. It included visits to other universities in Baden-Württemberg to explore regional priorities and current developments.
Congratulations to all these dedicated members of Baylor’s Modern Foreign Languages department!