Students Receive 2014 Indiana Outstanding College Student of Spanish Award

Publicado por: Notre Dame University
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In 2011, Marisel Moreno, associate professor of US Latino/a Literature, in the department of Romance Languages and Literatures was recognized by Indiana Campus Compact with the Governor's Award for Service Learning for her pioneering work creating the first senior-level Spanish literature course in the College of Arts and Letters that features a required community-service component. Every semester since 2010 each student from Moreno’s community-based learning (CBL) classes has worked at least two hours a week at La Casa de Amistad, a local outreach center for young Latinos in South Bend. Collectively they have contributed over 3,500 hours since they started working with La Casa— contributing significantly to La Casa’s service capacity and their ability to do outreach. 
Two years later, La Casa de Amistad was recognized by Indiana Campus Compact with the 2013 Outstanding Community Partner Award for embracing the idea of community as classroom and creating a partnership that benefits the students of La Casa as well as the Notre Dame students.
Now, Jason C. Hoard ’15, a Spanish and science pre-professional double major and Adam Z. Stepanovic ’15, also majoring in Spanish and science pre-professional and minoring in Science, Technology, and Values have received the 2014 Indiana Outstanding College Student of Spanish Award from the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese (AATSP). Both students have participated in community-based learning courses through the Center for Social Concerns and the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures community-based learning program.
The award recognizes the top seven undergraduate students majoring or minoring in Spanish in a public or private university in the state of Indiana. The award is given to a non-native student of Spanish who has excelled in college with an outstanding GPA of 3.7 or above and has received outstanding grades (A’s) in Spanish courses (language, literature, cinema, linguistics, culture, conversation etc.) during his/her first 3 years in the institution. Students must also volunteer in events outside class where Spanish is spoken, engage in Spanish service-learning projects, tutor Spanish, participate in a cultural group where Spanish is required, or present in an undergraduate conference related with the Spanish language.