I served as the Language Program Director for Hispanic Studies from 1984 to 2005. I design, teach and supervise language courses, train instructors, and for many years taught a graduate seminar on Theory and Methods of Foreign Language Teaching. As the recipient of numerous grants (NEH, Brown Curricular Development, Consortium for Language Teaching and Learning, Humanities Research), I've been able to create courses, develop programs to train teaching assistants, create instructional material using interactive media, and become a certified Oral Proficiency Tester. To develop my interest in the use of performance and the arts in the classroom, I attended the 2012 HABLA summer Arts Literacy Institute for training in this area. Since 2006 I have been exploring contemplative pedagogy in foreign language education and in 2008 published a pioneering article on this topic. In 2013 I published a book for students, Yoga for College: Balance and Transformation. I have been closely involved with the growth of Contemplative Studies whose concentration, the first of its kind in the US, was finalized in 2014. In 2010 I received the Sheridan Center Award for Distinguished Contribution to Teaching and Learning at Brown. Currently, I am interested in issues pertaining to disability and its effects on teaching, learning and student life. I also do literary translation, focusing on the work of the well known Argentinian writer Alejandra Laurencich. She visited Brown during the fall of 2017 to co-present with me in Hispanic Studies and Literary Arts. I am presently translating her most recent novel, The Waves of the World.
