ASL Faculty Profiles

Mauricio J. Almonte, ABD.

Mauricio J. Almonte, Ph.D./ABD

Office: CU 271

E-mail: malmont3@fau.edu

The coordinator for Academic Service-Learning and Community Outreach for the department. Also an award-winning Instructor of Spanish and an active scholar whose most recent publications appear in AEQ: Academic Exchange Quarterly, PALARA: Publication of the Afro-Latin American Research Association, and Sargasso. He is the primary point of contact for AS-L activities and related fundraising efforts within the Department of Languages, Linguistics and Comparative Literature.

Carla Calargé, Ph.D.

Carla Calargé, Ph.D.

Office: CU 270

Email: ccalarge@fau.edu

An accomplished Assistant Professor of French and Francophone Studies, a highly productive scholar, and chief intellectual architect of AS-L projects in which students of French from Florida Atlantic University help recently arrived Haitian students enrolled at Toussaint L’Overtoure High School, in Delray Beach, adjust to a new school system and cultural landscape. Her most recent publications appear in The Cincinnati Review, French Forum, and Nineteenth-Century French Studies.

Julissa Mansilla-Bjalme, M.A.

Julissa Mansilla-Bjalme,
M.A.

Office: CU 232G

Email: jmansill@fau.edu

A top-rated Instructor of Spanish who has implemented Academic Service-Learning in SPN 2221 and SPN 2341.

Ramona Rendón, M.A.

Ramona Rendón, 
M.A.

Office: CU 232G

Email: rrendon@fau.edu

A top-rated Instructor of Spanish with ample experience implementing Academic Service-Learning in various classes, mainly SPN 2221.   

Myriam Ruthenberg 

Myriam S. Ruthenberg, Ph.D.

Office: CU 232G

E-mail: ruthenbe@fau.edu

An associate Professor of Italian and Comparative Literature, winner of teaching and service awards, and the founder of the Italian Studies program, Dr. Ruthenberg implemented the first service learning course abroad in Orvieto, Italy, in the summer of 2008 with a course entitled, “Textures and Impressions: Reading the City,” one of two courses to first receive ASL designation in the college of Arts and Letters. Language level-specific assignments were tailored to match the needs of the city and citizens of Orvieto (one student created a runners’ itinerary; another helped with interpreting, etc.). Community outreach has been a natural component of the Italian Studies program, and service learning is a logical consequence of that healthy dynamic between our program and the community.

 

Ilaria Serra, Ph.D.

Ilaria Serra, Ph.D.

Office: CU242

Email: iserra1@fau.edu

Award-winning Assistant Professor of Italian specializing in Italian cinema, literature, song, and the history of Italian immigration to the United States. Some of her most recent publications appear in Italica, Adaptation, and The International Journal of Arts and Society. Dr. Serra employs AS-L in ITA 3420: Advanced Italian, where students from Florida Atlantic University assist with foreign language classrooms and related activities at the Henderson School as well as tutor university students enrolled in lower-level Italian language courses.

Justin P. White, Ph.D.

Office: CU 232G

Email: jwhite94@fau.edu

The Director of the Basic Language Program of the department who participated in a Faculty Learning Community focusing on Academic Service-Learning in 2009. Out of this experience emerged the AS-L project of having students enrolled in intermediate Spanish languages courses tutor their peers in lower-level language courses at our university. His publication on Academic Service-Learning (co-authored with Mauricio Almonte) has appeared in a special issue of AEQ: Academic Exchange Quarterly, and his publications on Second Language Acquisition, in HispaniaStudies in Second Language Acquisition, and The Florida Foreign Language Journal.