Meet the Instructor, Veronica Espina
Verónica Espina has been an instructor at the University of Illinois at Springfield (UIS) since 2001, and has taught Elementary and Intermediate Spanish courses for the Capital Scholars Honors Program, and also taught the first online Spanish class, LNG 125 Spanish for Cultural Literacy, a course that combines the learning of the Spanish language and information about social practices and cultural habits in Latinoamerican communities.
Besides teaching Spanish, Professor Espina participates in several team-teaching efforts with the UIS Sociology/Anthropology and the UIS Women's Studies Departments. Most recently, she team teaches SOA 131 - ECCE: Latin American Expressions, with Dr. Jennifer Manthei, and the Mexico & Globalization course with Dr. Heather Dell. Invited by Dr. Dell, professor Espina has been a co-instructor of the UIS Nicaragua Research & Gender course, which conducts research about the impact of trade agreements and neoliberal polices in the lives of women and men of the Global South. Professor Espina's main interests in teaching are focused on Global South awareness, teaching for social justice, popular education, cultural literacy and Spanish, and women and gender studies.
During the summer, Ms. Espina works for the Illinois Legislative Printing Unit, where she is a translator and interpreter for both Congressional houses, and is the only bilingual writer and copy editor for the legislature's constituency materials printed in Spanish. She has also been a consultant for the Office of the State Appellate Defender of Illinois, where she translates legal procedures concerning minorities/Latino populations into Spanish (the Expungement Project, and the Juvenile Expungement of Records). She has taught Spanish at the high school and middle school levels, and has organized study abroad courses to Mexico, for students of different learning capacities.
Before relocating to the US, Ms. Espina lived and worked in Chile, where she earned a bachelor's degree in Journalism and a postgraduate degree in Aesthetics, Art History and Philosophy, both from Universidad Católica de Chile. She worked as a television and arts magazine journalist, covering the areas of visual arts, music, and literature for about ten years. She was also an executive producer for Chilean Jazz bands, and was the lead singer of a popular R&B local sextet. She has recorded a children's music project with Chilean artists, released in Chile and France.
Ms. Espina graduated from UIS with a Master of Arts in Community Arts Management, and a graduate certificate in Management of Non-profit organizations. She is currently working on her first bilingual poetry book.
Back to LNG 125: Spanish for Cultural Literacy Online
