Dear current members, alumni, and friends of the Department of French and Italian,
We are happy to bring you this issue of the Ohio State Department of French and Italian Newsletter. In it, we take a moment to thank one of FRIT’s most generous and delightful recent donors; to profile two of our most interesting former students (an Olympian and a world traveler); and to tell you how FRIT celebrated International Francophonie Day (March 20) and how it managed to create a course–“Mafia Movies”–that now enrolls more than 500 students each semester.
Last Spring, Ohio State continued its return to relative normalcy. The campus-wide mask mandate was lifted after spring break, allowing us all to enjoy one another’s smiles and our students to see how the lips should look when pronouncing a good French [y] (super)! The university is also now ramping up hiring, which means that FRIT will welcome three new associated faculty members in French and one in Italian this Autumn and will conduct a search for a new tenure-track faculty member in Francophone Studies. We look forward to enjoying the new knowledge, talents, and vibrancy that these individuals, along with four incoming graduate students, will bring to the department.
We also look forward to being under the leadership of our incoming chair, Associate Professor Sarah-Grace Heller, who is wont to dress in medieval garb for her Old French course and to wield chef’s knives in her French Cuisine course. 2022-2023 indeed promises to be a year of growth, innovation, and vitality for French and Italian. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy this look back at Spring 2022.
Please stay in touch by subscribing to our Friends of FRIT mailing list, and following us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, where you will receive news of all of FRIT’s happenings.
Best wishes,
Jennifer Willging, outgoing Chair
Sarah-Grace Heller, Department Chair
