Undergraduate
World Language Day 2022: 136 Spanish Students from nine Kentucky high schools visited campus and participated in a variety of activities including a panel with current students and attending a class with UK faculty.
Mihir Kale graduated in May 2023 with two B.As: Spanish and Political Sciences with an Academic Certificate in Peace Studies and Academic Honors (Phi Beta Kappa, and Dean's List since 2019). He received several awards and honors: University of Kentucky Presidential Scholar, Gaines Center for the Humanities Fellow, Chellgren Student Research Fellow, U. S. Dept. of State Critical Language Scholarship-Swahili (2021), University of Kentucky Crum Outstanding Undergraduate Research Paper (1st place), sole institutional nominee for the Rhodes Scholarship, and the Evans Award for Excellence in the Social Sciences and Humanities (2023).
Under the direction of Dr. Yanira Paz, he completed a thesis for the Gaines Center for the Humanities entitled: "El papel lo aguanta todo: Linguistic Nationalism in Hispanic Constitutions." He presented research in several venues: two separate papers at the National Conference of Undergraduate Research (2023), Midwest Political Science Association (2023), University of Kentucky Undergraduate Research Showcase (2021), Kentucky Political Science Association Conference (2022), Illinois State University Conference for Political Science (2021). To all these accolades and presentations, it is important to add his service to the University of Kentucky (as member of the Student Government) and to the community (as Coordinator for the Legal Aid of the Bluegrass Outreach, Second Language Intern for the Kentucky Refugee Ministries, Intern for Global Lex and Mayor's International Affairs Advisory Commission). Mihir plans to attend Law School after a year working gap.
Graduate
David Cortés Ferrández will defend his dissertation entitled "La independencia de Catalunya en Twitter. Nuevas formas de argumentación" this coming August. He received in 2022 the College of Arts & Sciences Outstanding Teaching Award. He has presented in two international conferences in Cuba and Costa Rica and has two articles submitted for publication. David has accepted a Lecturer position in Washington University in St. Louis, where he will also be the Second Language Pedagogy Materials Coordinator.
Lilia (Malavé) Conley continues progressing on her dissertation entitled "Hugo Chávez, el camino hagiográfico: cristianismo y bolivarianismo en la construcción discursiva del culto a un presidente. " She has presented in one international conference and one national conference. She has been the recipient of several awards: The Lyman T. Johnson Fellowship (2017-2020), the Latin American, Caribbean & Latino Studies Research Grant (2020), the Department of Hispanic Studies Award for Service (2020) and Sigma Delta Pi for Service (2020). She has served as HIGSA vice-president, Sigma Delta Pi president, course leader, in the KFLC, and participated as tutor in La Mesa de Español.
Meimalín Rivas Estanga will complete her coursework on Hispanic Linguistics in Fall 2023 and plans to take her qualifying exams in May 2024. She will have completed two graduate certificates: Social Theory and Latin American Studies. She is working on a dissertation proposal around the topic of discourse analysis of texts written in Spanish for latinos/as children. Mei has presented in one international conference. She has received the 2023 Department of Hispanic Studies Award for her outstanding teaching. She has served as course leader, HIGSA member, representative of the Elementary Language Instruction Committe. and tutor in La Mesa de Español.
Danny Batten is in the process of preparing to complete the first dissertation in the history of the department to be completed in the field of (Spanish) Second Language Acquisition. Danny will be studying the acquisition of the Spanish mid-vowels /e/ and /o/ by classroom L1 English learners of L2 Spanish using perception and production data. He received an academic and scholarly development award from the Whayne funds to complete a pilot study as part of his dissertation project and received the McCrary-Keller Award for outstanding 2nd-4th year student for AY 2022-2023. He served as grad student assistant for the KFLC conference, 2023.