Faculty exchange pilot program creates intercultural opportunities
March 3, 2022
“What do I take for granted as universal, but is actually cultural? How do I ask the right questions or give the right answers so that my Mexican friends and colleagues and I can work well together? How can I learn to ‘unpack’ a misunderstanding and create strategies to recover from it and do better next time?” Teaching Professor Elena Mangione-Lora in the Department of Romance Language and Literatures raises these questions regularly.
Mangione-Lora is teaching Global Perspectives this semester in Puebla, Mexico at the Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla (UPAEP); in her place, Dr. Abigail Villagrán, who developed and directs the Global Perspectives program at UPAEP, is teaching intermediate Spanish classes at Notre Dame. As the inaugural professors in a three-year pilot faculty exchange between the two universities, Mangione-Lora and Villagrán are taking advantage of opportunities for professional growth and developing a network of colleague-collaborators while strengthening the valued relationship between the two institutions and maintaining student learning as their top priority.
The faculty exchange grew out of groundwork laid in 2017 when Mangione-Lora, Rachel Parroquin, director of Spanish community-based learning at the Institute for Social Concerns and faculty joint appointment in Romance Languages and Literatures, Lisette Monterroso, program coordinator, Notre Dame International, and others organized a conference with Notre Dame, UPAEP, and Monterrey Tec, inspired by Fr. John Jenkins’ 2016 call to deepen Notre Dame’s interaction with Latin America.
Mangione-Lora, one of six Spanish Community-Based Learning (CBL) faculty, integrates observation, critical thinking, and reflection in all her teaching. Informed by the Institute for Social Concerns Community Engagement Faculty Institute and close work with the Spanish CBL cohort, Mangione-Lora approaches the interdisciplinary work of teaching language and culture through engaged pedagogy with a lens of justice education grounded in moral imagination, practical wisdom, and the courage to act.
Likewise, Villagrán embraces this model of engaged work. Like Notre Dame, UPAEP is a Catholic university and grounds its work in the common good and solidarity, incorporating student service. “The intersection of language, culture, and identity has always been at the core of my interests,” says Villagrán, who also founded and directs UPAEP’s writing center. She explains that developing the Global Perspectives course has helped her set new pedagogical priorities to address today’s global challenges from a Mexican perspective.
Both Mangione-Lora and Villagrán are eager to deepen their understanding of the other’s culture, societal challenges, and opportunities to address justice issues with their students. By working within the community-generating approach at the heart of Spanish CBL, they are confident that multiple opportunities to explore deeply, teach mindfully with concrete action outcomes, and conduct engaged research will evolve as other faculty participate.