Department of World Languages & Cultures

Majoring in Spanish gave Elizabeth Hernandez ’26 the chance to explore culture through studying abroad, forge new connections and pursue a future where she can make a real impact.

Ryan Lidster, assistant professor of Japanese, has been selected for the Japan Foundation Japanese Language Institute's 2026 Special Training program for Non-Native Teachers of Japanese. This month-long program takes top teachers from the U.S. to the Language Institute in Urawa outside Tokyo, where they work in tandem with top language officials to make cutting-edge courses and materials for future Japanese learners.

Through a SAIL grant, Dr. Ashlee S. Balena led UNCW students to Peru for study abroad, blending academics with cultural engagement, including Misminay experiences, pachamanca preparation, Andean textile dyeing, and exploration of Machu Picchu, fostering cross-cultural skills and global awareness.

Laura Solano-Escobar and Valentino Rahming have been named 2025 recipients of a ACTFL Research Priority Grant. Their project, “Curriculum, Identity, and Investment in Heritage Language Programs” advances research in heritage language education by examining how curriculum design shapes students’ identities and their investment in maintaining and developing their bilingualism.

UNCW will be hosting the combined 16th Spanish Linguistics in North Carolina (SLINKI) and Spanish Linguistics in the Southeast (SLISE) conference on Feb. 6-7 in Congdon Hall. This event brings together faculty, researchers, and students to share current research in Spanish linguistics.

Azul Baltazar, a Spanish major with minors in linguistics and Japanese, has won the Robert W. Young Award for Undergraduate Student Research in Acoustics from the Acoustical Society of America. This $700 prize will be used to pay participants in his thesis study, "Perception of Spanish Lexical Stress by Heritage Speakers and Second-Language Learners."

Olivia Mitchell, a Japanese student and Communication Studies major, represented UNCW as its first ever presenter at the North Carolina Japanese Language Student Conference, held at Western Carolina University on Nov. 1. Olivia shared her own artwork featuring a Maiko wearing a Furisode and delivered a message in Japanese encouraging kindness and global connection.

Robert Santucci was named a UNCW Open Access Champion for 2025 for publishing three articles open access in the past year, with more planned. "Classical Studies has fortunately begun embracing open-access scholarship, in part because we need to do what we can to counteract rampant misinformation about Ancient Greece and Rome and its use in supporting ideologies that seek not to educate and build a constructive future for all, but instead to oppress people based on erroneous understandings of the ancient world. I encourage not only my colleagues at UNCW but my disciplinary colleagues around the world to do what they can to make our important work more accessible."