Department Faculty Profile - Dr. Uchenna P. Vasser
| Uchenna P. Vasser |  |
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Associate Professor, Department of World Languages and Cultures Phone: (336) 750-2415 329 Hall-Patterson 601 S. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive Winston-Salem, NC 27110 |
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| Background | |
| • Ph.D. in Romance Languages with a concentration in Portuguese from the University of North Carolina at Chapel-Hill • M.A. in Romance Languages from the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio • B.A. in Psychology with a minor in Spanish from Schiller International University in Madrid, Spain |
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| Position Responsibilities | |
| Teach and design courses for program requirements and for the majors and minors in Spanish • advise and mentor students • serve as Academic Advisor to two summer study abroad programs in Mexico and Spain • serve on various department and university committees including the Retention and Recruitment, and the International Programs Committees |
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| Credentials | |
| Courses Taught: SPA 1311 - Elementary Spanish I; SPA 1312 - Elementary Spanish II; SPA 2311 - Intermediate Spanish I; SPA 2312 - Intermediate Spanish II; SPA 3309 - Advanced Spanish Conversation; SPA 3311 - Hispanic Civilization; SPA 3323 - Cultures of the Spanish-speaking World; SPA 4310 - Advanced Spanish Composition | |
| Research Interest |
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| My current research hinges on an in-depth investigation of women in the environment through the lens of ecofeminist discourse. Specifically, I have researched and written on Black women and the environment in the African Diaspora of the Spanish-speaking world. My research studies works by writers like the Afro-Colombian Manuel Zapata Olivella who have written much about the marginalized segments of the collective Latin American society amid environmental degradation. | |
| Philosophy |
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| My personal and teaching philosophy might be summed up by Ludwig Wittgenstein's opinion when he intones that "the limits of my language mean the limits of my world." I believe that learning a foreign language broadens the scope of one's existence to embrace different ways of life and incite exciting ways of looking at the world. My role as a teacher is to make my students understand the possibilities inherent in learning a foreign language. | |
