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Feature Stories



Student Award Winners
Congratulations to the 2025 LALIS Award Winners:
Modern Languages Award, Latin American, Latino, & Iberian Studies -
Outstanding LALIS Major
Kerin Debany
Outstanding Service to the Richmond Hispanic Community
Karina García Rivera
Outstanding Assistant Teacher in LALIS
Sydney Dwyer, Ava Boghosian
The Progress Award
Jaize Francis
The Multilingualism Award
Delaney Forrestall

LALIS and SCEI Collaborate to Launch Latinx Magazine
UR’s Latinx magazine, Cuenticos y Recuerdos seeks contributions from individuals who feel an affiliation with the Latinx community at UR. A range of submission types and lengths that showcase the arts, scholarship, and achievements of our Latinx community are welcome. The publication is a collaboration between the Department of Latin American, Latino, & Iberian Studies and the Student Center for Equity and Inclusion. Questions? Email editors, Dafne Luna and Dr. Laura Fernández.
LALIS Students Present Research
LALIS students presented at the Council on Undergraduate Research NCUR 2025. Students proposed solutions to language access, bilingual education, and translation challenges in education and healthcare, highlighting the positive impact of their professional skills through community engagement.
Facilities Staff Contribute to Latest Museum Exhibition
The Department of Latin American, Latino & Iberian Studies and University Museums asked custodial staff for their input on an exhibition by Latinx artist Jay Lynn Gomez focusing on the value of domestic workers. Staff shared their impressions on the art and its layout, and provided comments and opinions that were integrated into the exhibition’s educational initiatives, catalogue, and informational panels.
“Collaborating with facilities employees offered an opportunity for talking about the vital energy involved in a work that implies much more than keeping up cleanliness and beauty of physical spaces, and for exploring the meanings of work and working time,” said exhibition co-curator Karina Vázquez, director of UR’s Spanish Community-Based Learning Program.
Faculty Highlights
Elizabeth Kissling, associate professor of Spanish and applied linguistics, presented "Teaching grammatical concepts in real life: Fulfilling the promise of concept-based language instruction" at the American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL) annual conference.
Karina Vázquez, senior teaching faculty of Latin American, Latino, and Iberian Studies, published "Escritoras que nos rescatan. La reedición literaria en el aula universitaria como práctica de investigación-creación / Female Writers Come to the Rescue: Literary Reedition as a Research-Creative Pedagogy in the University Classroom" in (an)ecdótica.
Karina Vázquez, senior teaching faculty of Latin American, Latino, and Iberian Studies, presented “Bridging the Gap: Students Translators and Interpreters within the Community” at the National Council Undergraduate Research Conference.
Scholarship Repository Readership
The University of Richmond's Scholarship Repository shares faculty publications with a world-wide audience. The map below shows where articles from LALIS faculty are being read around the globe.
Contact Information
Mailing Address:
Department of Latin American, Latino, and Iberian Studies
University of Richmond
211 Richmond Way
Carole Weinstein International Center
University of Richmond, VA 23173
Phone: (804) 484-1543
Fax: (804) 484-1544
Department Chair: Dr. Elizabeth Kissling
Academic Administrative Coordinator: Sarah Helen Studebaker
Director of Community-Based Learning: Dr. Karina Vazquez
Director of Spanish Intensive Language Program: Mr. Ted Peebles