Ferradáns to Deliver Keynote Address at Honors Convocation
BLOOMINGTON, Ill. –– Illinois Wesleyan University will host its annual Honors Convocation on Wednesday, April 10 at 11 a.m. in Presser Hall’s Westbrook Auditorium.
The Honors Convocation is dedicated to the Class of 2019, as well as IWU students who have earned scholastic and activity honors and honor society membership. The 2020 winner of the Kemp Foundation Award for Teaching Excellence, the University’s highest teaching honor, will also be announced during the event.
As the 2019 recipient of the Kemp Foundation Award for Teaching Excellence at Illinois Wesleyan University, Professor and Chair of Hispanic Studies Carmela Ferradns will deliver this year’s keynote address. Nominated by her peers and selected by the University’s Promotion and Tenure Committee, Ferradns is the 46th winner of the University’s top teaching award.
Ferradns teaches all levels of Spanish language, literature, and cultural history of Spain, as well as writing intensive courses for the Writing Program. In her role as inaugural chair of Illinois Wesleyan’s Council for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETAL), she has ventured into the fields of multimodal pedagogies and digital humanities. She is especially interested in finding connections between visual and written forms of communication.
As a scholar, Ferradns is recognized for her critical studies on the poetry of Ana Rossetti, particularly for her intertextual analysis of the Calvin Klein advertising campaign of the 1980s as it relates to poetry and the visual arts. She is the editor and translator of Incessant Beauty: A Bilingual Anthology (New York: 2LeafPress, 2014) which gives to an English-speaking audience a first glimpse into Rossetti’s eclectic and voracious symbolic universe.
Ferradns joined the Illinois Wesleyan faculty in 1992 and earned a Ph.D. in Spanish from the University of California, Irvine in 1993. Ferradns completed a master’s degree in Spanish at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 1988 after receiving a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and educational sciences at the University of Santiago de Compostela in 1984.
Areas of Ferradns’ research interests include: Contemporary Spanish literature and cultural studies; the Spanish avant-garde; the legacy of the Spanish Civil War; digital humanities; translation theory; multimodal curriculum development; migration studies.
Through the years, the Teaching Excellence Award has undergone several name changes, but its purpose has always been to recognize and celebrate the vital role that teaching plays at Illinois Wesleyan. The award honors one faculty member who brings spirit, passion and scholarship to the art of teaching. The Kemp Family Foundation began funding the award in the 2009-2010 academic year.
At the Honors Convocation, Senior Class President Alani Sweezy ’19 will be presiding. All members of the senior class are invited and encouraged to participate in the Convocation processional and recessional, wearing full academic regalia with tassels worn on the right side.
By Megan Baker ’21