Dear Friends,
I open this message by wishing you all the best for the new year.
2020 was indeed remarkable, and in Autumn semester members of the FRIT community worked incredibly hard in unpredictable, challenging, and novel circumstances. Our amazing staff made sure everything was covered, from distributing PPE in offices, managing enrollments and classrooms to great success, effectively managing all aspects of the budget and personnel in the most extraordinary times, and engaging with our community through social media and web updates, including this issue of FRONTIERE (thank you, Sonya Afanasyeva!) Our wonderful undergraduates adapted to new learning environments in new learning spaces, with several reworking plans to study abroad or take on internships. Our incredible graduate students, associated faculty, and tenure track faculty balanced teaching courses in new modalities and spaces, continued research agendas with restricted access to critical materials and archives, presented their discovery in a variety of virtual formats, reinvented courses, rethought curricula, and met regularly to imagine our new global future.
Speaking of our global future, Intercultural Competence (ICC) is featured in this issue of FRONTIERE, and Professors Janice Aski and April Weintritt have spearheaded several initiatives relating to the centrality of ICC in the world language curriculum. Their efforts include a series of webinars, a co-authored article, and Aski’s close collaboration with Pulitzer-Prize winning author Jhumpa Lahiri, all of which highlight the importance of sustained, respectful, and effective communication in our interconnected world.
The majority of the articles in this issue focus on our students, both graduate and undergraduate. Rachel Licina is the focus of our alumni spotlight. Rachel’s inspirational and diverse trajectory in education, travel, and career advancement epitomizes the values of Intercultural Competence discussed in this issue. Alioune (Badou) Fall is featured in our graduate student spotlight. Badou has had, and has, a central role in FRIT’s research, teaching, and service mission, and is known by his students to be thoughtful and dedicated, by his intellectual community as academically gifted and focused, and by our community as a reflective collaborator. Indeed, during a global pandemic, community and collaboration are essential, and have been fostered by The French and Italian Graduate Student Association (FIGSA) through planning several upcoming events that look phenomenal (keep your eyes open!), building a website, and providing support through a “FIGSA hotline.” I expend a special thank you to all of our students who have shined over the last several months!
Please stay in touch by subscribing to our Friends of FRIT listserv, and following us on Twitter and Facebook where you will receive news of all of our happenings, including some great talks and symposia planned for Spring semester.
Warmly,
Dana Renga, Department Chair
