B.S. Social Welfare, SUNY Buffalo

M.S. Administration and Supervision, CSU at Northridge

B.A. Russian, University of Arizona

M.A. Russian Language and Literature, University of Arizona

I first fell in love with foreign language as a very small child, listening to folk songs from all over the world on records that my mother had.  I learned the lyrics without understanding the meaning.  I just liked the way the words felt and the sounds sounded.  I still know many songs from those years:  in everything from Greek to Swahili to Portuguese.  From these songs, which became such an important part of my childhood, I learned and remembered a word here and there, although I may not have gone on to study the particular language seriously.

In high school I studied French, Russian and Spanish.  My first job after college was as a social worker at the Helen Keller National Center for Deaf-Blind Youths and Adults on Long Island, where I learned to use Sign Language to communicate with my clients.

After ten years as a social worker and vocational rehabilitation counselor,  I worked for a time at a travel agency where I designed group tours to Eastern Europe.  I also worked as guide to American travelers touring the Soviet Union:  once to Moscow and Leningrad (now Petersburg) and once from Moscow to Irkutsk on the Trans-Siberian Railroad.

 I  eventually returned to graduate school to continue with Russian.  There I studied two other Slavic languages, Polish and Serbo-Croatian.  During this time I traveled to various republics of the then Soviet Union, Hungary, and the Czech Republic.  I also lived in Moscow for a summer, attending classes with other American teachers of Russian at Moscow State University.  This was in 1990, one year before the peaceful changeover from the long-standing Communist regime to the present government.

Languages are endlessly fascinating to me, as is travel.  It is very exciting to me to think that the Spanish and French  you are learning in class will be useful to all of you in the years to come, beyond the classroom.  I encourage you to be aware of the influences of other languages and cultures that are all around us.  And I hope that you will all be able to experience the wonder of travel and the ability to communicate with another person in another language.