Congratulations to Romance Languages doctoral students Vera Bulla and Bethany Bateman McDonald, who have won UGA's prestigious Excellence-in-Teaching and Excellence-in-Research Awards!

Welcome to João Pedro Gomes! This is his first semester teaching Portuguese to UGA students as a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant (FTLA) in the Department of Romance Languages. He shares his reflections on the importance of language learning and culture:

Oumelbanine Nina Zhiri, professor of French at the University of California San Diego, will give a lecture entitled “Ahmad al-Hajarî, Worldmaker.” Zhiri will be hosted at UGA by the Early Modern Studies Research Group, an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant-funded research project in the Global Georgia Initiative of the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts. Matching funds are provided by Franklin College of Arts and Sciences and the departments of English, History, Romance Languages, and Theatre and Film Studies.

Congratulations to Evelyn Saavedra Autry, a doctoral candidate in Hispanic Studies, who has been granted the prestigious and highly competitive Dissertation Completion Award for her work on "Indigenous Female Subjectivities and Andean Voices in Contemporary Cultural Productions of the Peruvian Internal Armed Conflict (1980-2000)."

Two Romance Language majors have been granted Fulbright English Teaching Assistantships. Please join us in congratulating Geoffrey Nolan (Spanish and International Affairs) and Melissa Siegel (French, Political Science, and Sociology), who will be travelling next year to teach English in Baranquilla, Colombia and Malaysia, respectively. Follow this link to an interview with them in Georgia E-News!

The Portuguese program in Romance Languages and the Portuguese Flagship Program are proud to announce that this year six of our students were awarded the prestigious and highly competitive Boren Scholarship. This remarkable achievement deserves our heartfelt congratulations to Dalma Arteaga, Nicole Cortes, Bridget Goodman, Emily Hinckley, Connor Mason, and Davis Potts. With this distinguished honor, these students are now better equipped to participate in the Portuguese Flagship Program Overseas Capstone in 2025 and to pursue federal careers.

Portuguese students in the Department of Romance Languages had the privilege of receiving Brazilian percussionist Bill Lucas and Brazilian singer Maria Kamila, lead singer of Perrengue’s band, last week to learn about Brazilian rhythms. Students were invited to join in by singing and reproducing the rhythms they learned, clapping their hands, and moving their bodies. One of the rhythms they explored was coco de roda.

Every year the Center for Teaching and Learning recognizes the significant contributions graduate students make to the instructional mission of the University of Georgia through Teaching Awards sponsored by the Office of the Vice President for Instruction.

The Portuguese Flagship Program (PFP) proudly hosted a Professional Development event recently that brought together current PFP students and nearly 30 alumni from cohorts dating back to our very first overseas capstone group in 2013. Among the panelists, we had Romance Languages Majors: Mateo Villa '14, Rachel Osnos '14, Taylay Obeng-Akrofi' 15, Natalia Sanchez '16, Alejandro Espinosa '17, Jamie Sauerbier '19, and Baleigh Preston '21. 

The Portuguese Flagship Program is thrilled to announce that our Language Flagship Domestic Grant has been renewed for an additional four years. Since 2011, our mission has been to provide students from all majors with funded opportunities to become global professionals by achieving professional proficiency in Portuguese and becoming area experts in Brazil. We eagerly anticipate another four years of exciting cultural and professional initiatives through our seamless collaborations with the Department of Romance Languages and the UGA community at large.