James Hawthorne (profile forthcoming)

Tatiana Johnston (profile forthcoming)

Frank Murgel is a Pueblo native who recently returned to Southern Colorado to teach French at CSU-Pueblo. During an absence of some 25 years, he spent considerable time overseas studying and obtaining French degrees from the Sorbonne in Paris; working at the American Embassy in Brussels, Belgium and for the U.S. Army in Germany; and teaching English-as-a-Second Language to French business executives in Paris. He previously briefly taught French at then University of Southern Colorado in Pueblo while obtaining his Colorado teaching certificate for the secondary level. Frank grew up in a home where foreign languages were spoken, primarily Italian, and initially developed and pursued an interest in French as part of preparing for a second career. After starting French studies at CU-Boulder, to include a semester abroad in the French Alps, he "caught the bug" and ended up going back to finish school in Paris and working as described above. His teaching goals are that, through his classes, students will develop an appreciation, enthusiasm and love for foreign language learning in general and for French language and culture in particular, as he did. Frank is also involved, together with the CSU-Pueblo International Studies Office, in advising students who opt to continue their French studies in one of the CSU-Pueblo study abroad programs.

Chris Picicci (profile forthcoming)

Alegría Ribadeneira was born and raised in Quito, Ecuador. She came to the United States to attend college in Colorado, which she considers her second home. In order to pursue her passion for teaching Spanish, she moved to Florida to complete her graduate studies. She taught at the University of Florida for six years and received her Ph.D. In 2006 Dr. Ribadeneira was hired as an assistant professor at CSU-Pueblo, where she appreciates the small university setting, because it allows her to get to know her students and to become a mentor. She enjoys teaching the Spanish language, culture, and literature. With regard to the latter, Dr. Ribadeneira's philosophy focuses on the importance of contextualizing the study of literature and understanding it as an expression of social, political, and economical conditions; therefore, the study of Hispanic culture and history plays a key role in her classroom. Her research interests include contemporary Spanish and Latin American literature and culture, with a focus on gender studies. At present she is working on a manuscript titled Shattering Spheres:  Women Writing War in the Spanish-Speaking World. For this project she studies novels set in times of war (the Mexican Revolution, the Spanish Civil War, and the Cuban Revolution). In these novels, which are written by women and show a different perspective than that of the customary male war novel, Dr. Ribadeneira analyzes how the female characters behave outside the traditional roles prescribed for women by patriarchal ideology. She believes the novels reassess the hierarchical value system that traditionally devalues women's experiences and contributions. With respect to Spanish language teaching, Dr. Ribadeneira has a strong interest in foreign language pedagogy and is enthusiastic about incorporating all aspects of Hispanic culture into her classroom. She builds her language classes based on the language proficiency standards outlined by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. When not practicing her love for teaching or reading, she enjoys cooking, working in the garden, and hiking with her husband and two dogs.

Flor María Rodríguez-Arenas was born in Bogotá, Colombia. She is Full Professor of Spanish at Colorado State University-Pueblo. (See Educational background.) After seven years of teaching at Columbia University in the city of New York, Professor Rodríguez-Arenas joined CSU-Pueblo in 1995. She has taught as visiting professor at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá, Colombia, and the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogotá. Professor Rodríguez-Arenas' commitment to literature goes beyond her own writing and teaching to include her involvement in two international publishing houses, and on the advisory committees of several academic journals. Professor Rodríguez-Arenas teaches Spanish-American literature, with special emphasis on 19th and 20th century intellectual and cultural history, including fiction, essay and poetry. She has taught graduate classes and seminars, as well as all the levels of the Spanish undergraduate program. Her research combines the literary study of early letters, chronicles, histories, and newspapers about the colonization, and the 19th century of the Spanish Americas with history and early modern science and technology. This research aims at providing a description and analysis of the structures of knowledge that accompanied the rise of prose fiction, and the colonialist or liberal ideologies during the 17th century through the end of the 19th century. Professor Rodríguez-Arenas also studies the connections among literary works produced on both sides of the Atlantic at that time. Author, among other works, of: Tradiciones peruanas - Las tradiciones más cortas: entre el refrán y el cuento (2006). Bibliografía de la literatura colombiana del siglo XIX - Tomo I (A-L) (2006). Bibliografía de la literatura colombiana del siglo XIX - Tomo II (M-Z) (2006). Novelas y cuadros de la vida sur-americana (2006). La emancipada (2005). Tomás Carrasquilla: Nuevas aproximaciones críticas. (2000). Chiapas: la realidad configurada (La novelística de Heberto Morales) (1999). Lecturas de críticas de textos hispánicos (1998). Hacia la novela: la conciencia literaria en Hispanoamérica (1792-1848). (1993, 1998). Tradiciones peruanas. Ricardo Palma (Critical Edition. Archives de la Littérature Latinoamericaine). Co-editor (1993, 1996). Guía bibliográfica de escritoras venezolanas. Coauthor (1993). Guía bibliográfica de escritoras ecuatorianas. Coauthor (1993). ¿Y las mujeres? Estudios de literatura colombiana. Coauthor (1991), as well as numerous articles on Colonial, 19th Century, and XX Century Spanish American authors. She is preparing a volume on the formation of the early Colombian prose fiction.