Borbala Gaspar, Lecturer in the Department of French and Italian, is the recipient of the College of Humanities 2025 Distinguished Teaching Award. 

Gaspar has a “360-degree approach to education (that) extends to every student, fostering a community of individuals who grow together and learn from each other’s experiences,” wrote fellow Italian faculty member Maria Letizia Bellocchio, herself a 2021 recipient of the COH teaching award, in a nomination letter signed by the rest of the Italian faculty members.

“Not only does Borbala excel as an educator, but she embodies genuine care for her students,” Bellocchio wrote. “In the classroom, Borbala creates an inclusive environment conducive to learning, empowering students to comfortably express their identities and step beyond their comfort zones, recognizing mistakes as integral to both academic and personal development.”  

Gaspar teaches basic language and General Education courses, serves as the faculty advisor of the student-led Dolce Vita Italian Club, organizes countless student events, mentors first-year Ph.D. students in the SLAT program, and contributes as a member of the college-wide student recruitment task force.

In her courses, Gaspar includes real-world cultural examples – photographs, advertisements, posters, short video clips, online articles, literary texts, infographics, social media posts and maps – to prompt students to think critically about the language. 

“After having built a strong community of students, Borbala promotes student agency by encouraging active engagement with the Italian language and fostering critical analysis of cultural aspects,” Bellocchio wrote. “This approach ensures students develop an awareness of the complex dynamics between textual conventions and context, gaining insights into language, understanding genres, and exploring cultural significance.” 

Several students also wrote letters in support of Gaspar’s nomination. 

“Dr. Gaspar’s authentic passion for teaching as well as her care for her students is made evident from the moment you step into her classroom. She is truly committed to helping each student improve their Italian language and comprehension skills and develop an overall appreciation for the subject and the humanities,” wrote another. “She is a one-of-a-kind professor who has made such a positive lasting impact both on my educational career and on my overall experience at the University of Arizona.” 

“Dr. Gaspar poured so much of her time into me by not only discussing Italian but also my plans for the future. I once had expressed to her how overwhelming and frankly intimidating the prospect of post-university realities seemed. I expressed to her my interest in working in a museum, and later that night, I received a message from her saying she had contacted museums in Italy on my behalf inquiring about summer internships,” wrote one student. 

“Dr. Gaspar is exceedingly deserving of this award because of her eagerness to help her students however she can, both inside and outside the classroom. She is a talented educator and a strong pillar of support for her students,” wrote another student. “Borbi has a gift for connecting deeply with her students and encouraging learning with a positive attitude, even when it may seem daunting to students. She continuously creates a passion for learning for her students, even beyond the scope of the course curriculum. It was largely due to her teaching and encouragement that I declared Italian as a second major.” 

Alison Jameson, Associate Professor of Practice in the Departments of Religious Studies and Classics and East Asian Studies, is the recipient of the College of Humanities 2025 Distinguished Undergraduate Advising/Mentoring Award. 

Karen Seat, Head of the Department of Religious Studies & Classics, nominated Jameson for the honor, writing that she “spends the time to get to know each and every student who comes to her office, and offers herself as a faculty advisor they can count on to support them each step of the way through their academic career.” 

“Dr. Jameson consistently goes above and beyond her regular duties to serve not only as an advisor but also as a tireless advocate, mentor, and anchor for our students,” Seat wrote. “As the primary faculty advisor for undergraduates in Religious Studies since 2016, she has spent an enormous amount of time and energy with students in this capacity, due to her deep commitment to their success and wellbeing.” 

Seat noted that Jameson often “goes out of her way to advocate for students facing challenges or obstacles to their success,” which students wrote about in their own nomination letters. 

“Professor Jameson’s guidance as an advisor was especially invaluable to me during one of the most challenging periods of my life,” wrote one student, detailing physical and mental struggles. “She not only provided academic guidance but also offered empathy and encouragement when I needed it most. Her care and understanding made me feel seen and supported when I otherwise felt isolated.

“Her commitment to her students’ academic and personal growth, coupled with her ability to inspire and guide, makes her more than deserving of this recognition. I am deeply grateful for the impact she has had on my life, and I am confident that her contributions will continue to enrich the academic community for years to come.” 

“Anytime I felt myself worried about what I was doing or what to do next, I felt like Dr. Jameson was in my corner, helping me figure out the next step in the path, and if there wasn’t an obvious one, she was helping me lay a new stepping stone,” wrote another student. “She was a calm, confident presence, a person to whom I could go with any uncertainty or curiosity. I truly appreciate having had her as my adviser, and I believe that she deserves to be recognized by the College of Humanities for her advisership and mentorship to the undergraduate students.” 

Seat wrote that Jameson’s has also been tireless in recruiting students, both through the relationships she develops in her own teaching, including Gen Ed courses that include large numbers of first- and second-year students, and through representing the department at various campus events. She has worked to create a sense of community among students, helping to develop the department’s first-ever Religious Studies student club. 

With most Religious Studies students having two or three majors, Jameson makes painstaking efforts to work with them to map out their degree plan so that they can successfully complete all their degree commitments.

“Dr. Jameson also teaches large numbers of freshmen and sophomores in her Gen Ed classes, and develops relationships with many students in her classes that result in major/minor declarations,” Seat wrote. “Dr. Jameson quietly and steadily gives her all to mentoring and advising students, year in and year out.” 

Judd Ruggill, founding Head of the Department of Public and Applied Humanities, has received the 2025 University of Arizona Distinguished Head/Director’s Award. 

“You have distinguished yourself not only through your visionary administrative expertise, but also through the trust you cultivate, the collaborations you inspire, and the resources you steward with remarkable care and foresight,” wrote Interim Provost Ronald Marx. “Under your leadership, Public and Applied Humanities has flourished into one of the most vibrant, collaborative and intellectually dynamic units on our campus. 

Founded in 2017, the Department of Public and Applied Humanities has grown from 8 students in its first year to 405 now, an increase of nearly 5,000 percent over seven years. 

“The exponential growth of the department’s enrollment, the successful establishment of multi-college academic pathways, and the elevation of inclusive excellence as a guiding principle—all testify to your dedication, creativity, and strategic brilliance,” Marx wrote. 

Notably, Ruggill was the only full-time faculty member in the department at its founding. The department now has 16 core faculty members and four adjunct instructors. 

“There was no other model for such a unit in the country, we knew it would have to be radically collaborative and transdisciplinary. The fact that the unit has grown significantly every single year for the last seven years, however, is a compelling sign that a very skillful leader is at the helm,” wrote the College of Humanities four deans in a joint nomination letter. “Dr. Ruggill worked extremely hard as a Department Head to bring our new department to life, and he has succeeded so well that it is now a jewel in the crown of our college and a model of the future of the Humanities at the national level.” 

In another joint nomination letter, the department’s senior faculty noted that under Ruggill’s leadership, Public and Applied Humanities has developed into one of the most collaborative units on campus. 

“A practiced proponent of true shared governance, Dr. Ruggill assiduously supports the will of our departmental team, which includes staff and faculty of all ranks and classifications,” they wrote. “With his attention to detail and his trust in our team’s ability to build an effective department together, Dr. Ruggill uses a deft administrative touch that has helped our curriculum develop organically from our interests and strengths, as well as for the needs of our students.” 

The B.A. in Applied Humanities provides students with a transdisciplinary education combining professional skills with the cognitive, creative, international, interpersonal, and intercultural intelligences and competencies taught in the humanities. 

Students can select from 11 emphases, the result of strong partnerships with colleges across campus: Business Administration; Consumer, Market & Retail Studies; Engineering Approaches; Environmental Systems; Fashion Studies; Game Studies; Medicine; Plant Studies; Public Health; Rural Leadership & Renewal; and Spatial Organization & Design Thinking.

“Dr. Ruggill rarely lets institutional or structural challenges get in the way of a good collaboration,” the senior faculty wrote. “Dr. Ruggill’s spirited support of faculty, his clear guidance for collaboratively developing our courses, and his focus on fiscal responsibility and revenue growth made it possible for the faculty to assemble a robust, unique, and compelling degree built on a curricular structure both strong and flexible.” 

Ruggill joined the U of A faculty in 2016 as part of the Computational Media Cluster initiative. He primarily researches play and the technologies, industries and sociocultural phenomena that enable it. He has published and presented on topics ranging from archiving to xenolinguistics, and in his spare time plays the double bass.

The Distinguished Head/Director’s Award was created in 2021, sponsored by the University of Arizona Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost. The award recognizes uncommon performance, calling attention to individuals whose leadership and management has raised the standards, expectations, and reputation of the unit as a whole, or who have otherwise brought excellence, innovation, and high ethical standards to the art of being a unit head or director. Karen Seat, Head of the Department of Religious Studies and Classics and Director of the School of International Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, was one of the inaugural recipients.

Kristy Doran, Associate Professor of Practice in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, has won the 2025 University of Arizona 5-Star Teaching Award.

Announced by the W.A. Franke Honors College, the award is the only student-selected award that recognizes excellence in teaching across the University of Arizona. Funded by Dr. Margaret M. Briehl and Dr. Dennis T. Ray, the award comes with a cash prize. 

“Profe. Doran's energy, passion, and dedication to her students is apparent both in the classroom and across the community. Her love for learning and her curiosity for the world is unmatched. Our students are incredibly fortunate to have her expertise, and this award is very well deserved!” said Andrew Pongratz, a member of the 5-Star Teaching Award Committee. 

For six years, Doran served as Director of the Spanish Basic Language Program, overseeing one of the nation’s largest programs with over 6,000 students enrolled annually. She led innovative changes that advanced student success, supported program employees, and modernized the program through the introduction of Universal Design for Learning principles in the curriculum. 

Doran received numerous nominations from students: 

“Dr. Doran is by far the most supportive teacher and mentor I have ever encountered. She is clear with her expectations, but is also understanding and supportive when unexpected situations occur. She encourages out-of-the-box thinking and using creative ways to think critically. She has accomplished being the perfect balance of structure, support and engaging,” one student wrote. 

“She has become my role-model for how I want to be as a professor one day. As my thesis mentor, she has helped me brainstorm project ideas, taught me how to create a timeline, introduced me to new resources, and supported me every step of the way. She not only values my work academically, but also respects me as a person. She has even gone above and beyond for me by going out of her way to help me resolve a problem I encountered outside of our direct work together,” wrote another. 

In 2021, Doran received the Distinguished Undergraduate Advising/Mentoring Award from the College of Humanities, and the University of Arizona Provost Office Arizona Champion Award. 

Prior College of Humanities winners of the Five Star Faculty Award include:

2021: Rob Stephan, Religious Studies and Classics 

2018: Edgard Ore-Giron, Spanish and Portuguese 

2017: Annette Joseph-Gabriel, French and Italian

2016: Anders Peterson, Spanish and Portuguese

2013: Alain-Philippe Durand, French and Italian

2009: Albrecht Classen, German Studies

2008: Melissa Fitch, Spanish and Portuguese

2004: David Soren, Classics

2000: Jon Solomon, Classics

1997: Ana Perches, Spanish and Portuguese

1996: Elizabeth Harrison, East Asian Studies

1995: Kamakshi Murti, German Studies

1987: Robert A. Burns, Religious Studies

1985: Donna Swaim, Humanities

1984: Vicky Hamblin, French

Nathaniel Cross, graduating with honors in Spanish and Political Science, is one of two undergraduate recipients of the 2025 Merrill P. Freeman Medal. 

Cross will be recognized alongside six other graduating seniors during Commencement for their extraordinary accomplishments in and out of the classroom. The Merrill P. Freeman Medal is named in honor of Merrill Freeman, who served the U of A as a regent and chancellor. Qualifications for the award include outstanding character. The other recipient is Katie Nguyen, graduating with dual degrees in Physiology and Medical and Molecular and Cellular Biology.

Born in the United Kingdom, Cross has called Tucson home for most of his life. Cross’s own migration to the United States at a young age helped him understand the importance of public service and constituent casework in immigration fields. Throughout his undergraduate career at the U of A, Cross has worked to empower migrant communities as an intern with Chicanos Por La Causa, a legal aid nonprofit, by helping put on biannual naturalization fairs that help residents apply for citizenship at no cost. His work led to his selection as an intern for the university’s Mellon-Fronteridades program. 

Cross’s commitment to increasing the accessibility of quality immigration services is tied to his greater personal philosophy of empathetic and compassionate public service. As a political science research assistant, Cross is studying methods to reduce gun violence and violent crimes around Tucson by investing in alternatives to law enforcement and collaborations with community partners. 

Cross is a multi-semester recipient of the Dean’s List with Distinction and Highest Academic Distinction awards. He was also named a United States Senate Youth Program scholar, and has received the Frances McClelland Youth Vision Award and the Tara S. O’Connor Memorial and Patricia MacCordale scholarships. 

In 2024, Cross began an accelerated Master of Public Policy program in the School of Government and Public Policy. After graduation, Cross plans to finish his master’s degree and hopes to pursue international public service as a Fulbright Scholar or with the Peace Corps. 

In Aileen A. Feng’s seminar course ITAL 410 “Machiavelli and His Legacies,” students this semester went beyond their literary studies to research and interpret Renaissance prints from the University of Arizona Museum of Art collection. 

As they worked through an in-depth study of Niccolò Machiavelli’s famous 1532 political treatise Il Principe in its original 16^th-century language, the students also became guest curators, using the themes from their reading to analyze and interpret artworks made in Italy during the same time period. 

The class then staged a pop-up exhibition, “L’occhio del Principe: Machiavellian Lessons Through Renaissance Prints,” on May 1 in the UAMA study classroom, featuring five prints from the museum’s collection, dating from roughly 1480-1650, alongside interpretive labels written by the students. 

“Originally, I wanted to bring them to the museum so they could be immersed in visual art of the period we were studying, and to bring them to Special Collections so they could consult some of the earliest printed books out of Italy, including the first editions of Machiavelli’s works” Feng said. “But when I met with Willa (Ahlschwede) at the museum to talk about potential class visits and how to get my students really engaged with the collection, she said ‘Why don’t we do a pop-up exhibition?’” 

Feng, Associate Professor and Director of Italian Studies, had already examined the museum’s catalog of more than 200 Italian Renaissance artworks and then for the pop-up she pre-selected 12 prints that presented themes the students would learn about as they studied Il Principe. 

“This was a big ask because these are language and literature students, not art history students. They walked in thinking it was just an Italian literature class, and that their biggest challenge would be learning how to read Renaissance Italian, and now they had to learn about visual art and label writing for a museum,” Feng said. “They had to start thinking about Machiavellian themes very early in their reading and as we got later into the semester, they were really able to take ownership of their prints and bring something to their artworks that other curators wouldn’t necessarily think of.” 

Ahlschwede, Assistant Curator of Education & Public Programs, said part of the museum’s mission is to create art experiences for all students. 

“We work with a lot of students, frequently art and art history, but we strive to work with students beyond that, so we love these interdisciplinary connections. It’s an easy and natural fit with humanities students and how they’re learning to connect with all kinds of cultural artifacts,” Ahlschwede said. “It’s a special treat to pull prints out of our vault and work with students who can bring new insights."

The class took visits to the museum, looking at the permanent Kress Collection on display and receiving a primer on the art of the era and the transition from the Italian Middle Ages to Renaissance. They also learned how to write interpretive labels in a workshop with UAMA Curatorial Assistant Violet Arma. 

The 11 students—Adrien Able, Sierra Beard, Nina Doering, Alex Gardner, Kate Jaramillo, Manuela Maldonado Cadeñanes, Stella Marcuzzo, Sadie Parent, Jairo Parra, Christian Schifano and Talia Tardogno—then worked in teams, selecting five of the prints Feng presented to them, writing interpretive labels for the pop-up exhibition.

“They each brought something from their own academic backgrounds and perspectives, so they had different engagements with the prints and were able to learn things from one another too,” she said. 

Tardogno and Beard chose Ugo da Carpi’s David Slaying Goliath, a chiaroscuro woodcut from 1518. In Il Principe, Machiavelli praises David for only relying on his slingshot to defeat his opponent rather than borrowing the weapons of others. In the woodcut print, David appears holding a sword over Goliath, rather than with his slingshot, already having downed the giant.

“This represents a part of the battle that’s not usually shown and it signifies triumph and victory,” Tardogno said. “We related it to Machiavelli because in Machiavelli’s ideals, to be a good prince or leader, you have to rely on your own weapons. David [with his slingshot] embodies this ideal that to overcome challenges, you have to do it yourself.”

Beard said the project was daunting at first, but as they developed a deeper understanding of Machiavelli’s text, they realized the artwork became a helpful way to analyze themes like virtù and fortuna, which don’t have single-word meanings. 

“With Italian, there are concepts that can’t be translated as easily into English,” she said. “And this print represents some of those.” 

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Schifano and Parra chose Naval Battle Between the Greeks and Trojans, an engraving from 1538 by Giovanni Battista Scultori. 

“What attracted us was the pure detail of the engraving,” Schifano said. “There are so many intricate things that you could stare at for hours. It really tells a complete story.” 

Though it depicts a chapter of Homer’s Iliad, their analysis centered on Machiavelli’s analogy of a fox and a lion as two personas a prince must have, with the fox representing cunning and cleverness, and the lion representing strength and power. 

“When we saw this engraving, we thought about how it connects to Machiavelli talking about a battlefield and war,” Parra said. 

The pop-up exhibition drew 64 visitors, including Ken McAllister, College of Humanities Associate Dean of Research and Program Innovation, who said it was impressive to see the students so engaged with their work, and so supportive of each other. 

“As an archivist, I was delighted to see students beginning to understand the often tricky art of producing interpretive materials for an exhibition. Though brief, this practice will stay with these students for a lifetime I suspect. They'll never visit a museum or gallery again without thinking, if just for a second: "Someone made these signs and labels, and to do that, they had to think through a bunch of issues and make decisions about how best to invite viewers into the experience of a piece,’” he said. “It was a brilliant event that reminded me yet again that COH faculty are life changers and world makers.”

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Feng said that when she teaches the course again, the UAMA collaboration and pop-up exhibit will become a permanent part of the class. 

“It gave students an opportunity to critically engage with cultural objects they don’t normally study in an Italian literature class and to apply their specialized knowledge about a political treatise to  artworks of the same period,” Feng said. “They have developed an expertise and a skill set that can be applied to many different media.” 

Eighty years after chemical dumping began contaminating groundwater near the Tucson airport – and 30 years after remediation efforts began – a class of Applied Humanities students brought the story into the digital age, focusing on community efforts for water justice. 

Jacqueline Barrios, Assistant Professor in the Department of Public and Applied Humanities, centered this semester’s course, “Southside Stories of Environmental Resilience,” on the issue of environmental harm from the Trichloroethylene (TCE) water contamination crisis, which dates to the 1940s and continues to this day. 

Through an interdisciplinary approach, students in the course – PAH 420: Innovation and the Human Condition: Learning How to Improve Life in the Community and Beyond – work on analyzing the cultural, political and economic conditions involved in a community-based issue, identifying opportunities for improvement, and delivering a multi-faceted presentation on positive interventions of their design. 

“How do you tell the story of water? It’s endlessly flowing and hard to capture,” Barrios said. “Whose story is it? There are so many wheres, so many whens, so many whos. All of the projects here do their part to try to tell that story.”  

Over the course of the semester, the students were assigned readings, spent time doing archival research, reviewed oral histories, conducted their own interviews, and visited pertinent sites for their own documentation. Their final projects were to prototype publicly engaged projects that introduce new audiences to the ongoing story of environmental contamination and resilience. 

“Altogether, the projects and visual record provided a layered narrative of the complicated histories of the watershed — from contamination to remediation, from depletion to recharge, from histories of harm to an interconnected ecological future with our riparian home,” Barrios said. 

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The 10 group projects included a time capsule, scavenger hunt, short film, mural, digital photography, a comic-style zine, collages, a water-saving campaign and social media campaigns on Instagram and TikTok. 

Zoe Gyuro, Marty Weich, Megan Tierney and Jack Carpenter chose to create a digital photo collection for their project Water Whispers, building a website as a visual archive and map. They visited the Three Hangars site where contamination began, the Santa Cruz River and neighborhood wells and learned about the issues directly from community members. 

“For our project, we hope to contribute to ongoing efforts to rewrite narratives of the Southside as more than a site of environmental upset, but a place of deep culture, resilience and creative expression,” the group wrote. 

“We want to expose what’s been going on in Tucson for many years and what’s still going on with these wells,” Carpenter said. “The highlight for me was seeing these wells, going out into these neighborhood and meeting the families who are still dealing with this problem.”  

For Tierney, who switched from being a business major to an Applied Humanities with an emphasis in Business Administration, the project was valuable for how extensively the students got to interact with the community.  

“This project has been a lot more personal and I feel like it has had community impact,” Tierney said. “We’ve listened to different speakers and we’ve been able to take those stories and create something that can influence people and connect with anyone. It’s taught me a lot about the importance of community and standing up for what’s right.” 

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Gyuro said the project taught her about the importance of community effort and how different people, and different ways of interacting with people, can come together for an impact. 

“If we work together, we can make sure other people within the community and broadly can feel comfortable expressing to one another when they need help, but that they can help each other,” she said. “When it comes to humanities, you have to involve yourself.” 

For Weich, documenting the areas via digital photography was a way to augment what he found doing archival research in the University Libraries’ Special Collections. Three Hangars especially was an important area to capture, even decades after remediation efforts began. 

“I really wanted to show not only how fallen apart it is, but how fenced off it is,” he said. “This is where it all started and that’s important for us as students to remember.” 

Liz Soltero, CEO of the Sunnyside Foundation, said the organization is grateful to have such a strong and reciprocal partnership with Barrios and her students, who demonstrated care and respect in their projects. 

“This has been a truly great experience,” she told the students during their final presentations. “The work that you are engaging in and focusing on has so much impact in our lives. Every time we talk with students, I share that this isn’t just an assignment, this is our lives. At the Sunnyside Foundation, we feel honored to engage in this way and have an exchange of ideas about the community we love.” 

The course was supported by the University Libraries’ Digital Borderlands in the Classroom program, as well as the Research + Resilience Grants program co-sponsored by the Arizona Institute for Resilience and the College of Fine Arts. Barrios and her students collaborated with Professor Martina Shenal’s students in ART 343A: Traditional Photographic Techniques, working on visual storytelling. Previously, Barrios received a Research + Resilience grant for a related project, Documenting Resilience in Tucson’s Southside, in collaboration with the Center for Creative Photography and College of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture. 

The course’s final review featured gallery walks of ten student projects with projected slideshows and table displays, and two sets of lightning talks, with about 50 community and campus guests in attendance, including community activists who’ve spent decades fighting for clean, safe water. 

Marla Franco, Vice President for Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) Initiatives, said uniting students and community partners in collaborative and innovative projects benefits everyone.

“These are the types of experiential, hands-on learning opportunities that are deeply rooted in community needs and desires that I only dream of happening,” she said. “Often it needs only a little seed money and an expression of belief in people. Our faculty and students activated this in ways we never thought possible. This epitomizes what happens when you dream big and bring your expertise and passion to the table.” 

Yolanda Herrera, co-chair of the Unified Community Advisory Board, Tucson International Airport Area Superfund Site, and president of the Sunnyside Neighborhood Association, said she enjoyed engaging with the students and observing how their projects developed. 

“I’m really impressed and motivated and inspired by all the students’ work,” Herrera said. “You are the solution of our future. Never forget that. And always remember, clean, safe water is life.”  

As the inaugural H3 Interdisciplinary Scholars, Ryan Haymore and Nagasriya Ramisetty each developed their own unique ways to unite their studies in the humanities and health. 

Ramisetty is a double major in Applied Humanities, with an emphasis in Public Health, and Physiology and Medical Sciences, with minors in Adolescents, Community, and Education (ACE) and Creative Writing. Haymore is majoring in Spanish & Portuguese, with a minor in Biochemistry. Both are honors students and both are working toward medical school. 

As the first two students selected for the Health Humanities Hub Interdisciplinary Scholars program, they demonstrate how readily new collaborations at the intersection of health and humanities can be created. 

“It was fascinating to see how they each brought their own experiences, strengths, and academic perspectives to bear. At a campus wellness event, Ryan used his language skills to converse with visitors in Portugues, and Sriya used her artistic talent to create a beautiful scaffold for a collective poem. They embody the wide variety of possibilities within the health humanities, from the linguistic and cultural aspects of healthcare to the role of creative expression in studying and supporting well-being,” said H3 Coordinator Christine Hoekenga. 

Ramisetty, a Flinn scholar from the Phoenix area, came into college as a pre-medicine student studying physiology, but soon added the Applied Humanities major since it fit her interest in narrative medicine and the changing healthcare environment.   

“This is the perfect crucible for me to combine all my interests. It perfectly synthesizes why I think the humanities lend themselves to better health practices and how the humanities can be healing,” she said. 

Haymore chose his major knowing that with a diversifying patient population, the intercultural skills from the humanities would be increasingly important, and would also make him stand out when applying to medical school. 

“I always wanted to do something other than a science major, to use the undergraduate opportunity to become more well-rounded. I already knew Spanish somewhat fluently and I wanted to continue learning languages, so that was my introduction to the humanities. I love the history, the art, the music, all those other things that go into learning about the culture and language,” said Haymore, who was drawn to the internship in an email list of opportunities. “As soon as I saw health and humanities in the same phrase, I knew that was exactly what I wanted to do.” 

Together, Haymore and Ramisetty conducted a research project on social prescribing, a promising healthcare approach that connects patients to community organizations to address social determinants of health. There are a variety of activities and organizations, but common areas of focus include nature, exercise and art. 

They reviewed recent research, analyzing dozens of programs to understand the variety of models and created a general diagram of how social prescribing works. Because most of the case studies are in Europe, Australia and Canada, they examined different health care systems and economic structures. They also identified gaps in the literature, opportunities for future research, and potential limitations for social prescribing to gain more momentum in U.S. They presented their research at the Franke Honors Pinnacle in April. 

“One thing they did that’s impressive and different was to go beyond the academic literature and spend time looking at toolkits and action plans created by community organizations outside academia,” Hoekenga said. “It’s a research project with a very applied component.” 

Separately, Ramisetty presented an independent research project, which she also presented at the Asian Pacific American Medical Student Association in March. The work in progress is a literature review of different components of Asian American mental health stigma, analyzing how individuals experience it vs. how the community perceives it and how that is integrated into policy. Next, Ramisetty will conduct interviews for patient narratives as she expands the research into her honors thesis project. 

Haymore, who lived in Argentina before college, completed his honors thesis his junior year, examining connections between language learning and well-being, reviewing literature on how cognitive decline can be prevented by learning another language. He presented his thesis in both English and Spanish. He will graduate after the fall semester and has received early acceptance to the College of Medicine – Tucson. 

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Throughout the semester, the scholars also served as ambassadors for the health humanities. Haymore represented H3 alongside faculty and students from the Center for Digital Humanities at a Fuel Wonder event in February in Scottsdale, showcasing a variety of health-humanities collaborations. Both scholars participated in the Be-Leaf and Bloom event hosted by Campus Health in April, creating a Poe-Tree, an exercise encouraging people to write their own mini-poems about where they are from, to demonstrate how people’s experiences can be linked to social determinants of health. Ramisetty is creating a digital art piece to showcase the results. 

Brimming with more ideas than they can tackle in a semester, Haymore and Ramisetty, along with fellow H3 intern Taylor Raney, are also developing a framework for increased student engagement in the Health Humanities Hub, potentially a club or ambassador program to enable ongoing and larger scale activities. 

Five students in the new Portuguese Flagship Program have received the prestigious Boren Scholarship, worth $25,000, to fund their capstone years in Brazil. 

The Portuguese Flagship Program was launched in fall 2024 with a $1.2 million grant, which provides numerous resources to students studying Portuguese, including one-to-one advising and tutoring, career counseling with local professionals, summer study abroad opportunities in Salvador, the capital of Bahia in northeastern Brazil, and a capstone year in Brazil for additional classes and internships. 

“We are thrilled and proud to celebrate this achievement — it is a huge step in the academic and professional trajectory of these incredible students,” said Kátia Bezerra, Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and Director of the Portuguese Flagship Program. 

The U of A is one of two institutions awarded a Portuguese Flagship grant, joining the University of Georgia, and one of four universities nationally with at least two flagship programs. The Boren recipients are Brianna Devlin, Max Hayward, Pablo Enrique Martinez Bojorquez, Julianna Schrader and Austin Willis. 

“What I value most about the Boren Scholarship is the focus on language learning tied directly to public service; I won’t just spend a capstone year in Brazil, but apply my experience in a meaningful way. The scholarship has reinforced my commitment to working in international policy, and is providing me with the tools I need to be successful in my dream career as an attorney for global human rights,” Schrader said. 

“The world I was born into isn’t the only one I’ll ever know. I make my own fate, and through Boren, learning Portuguese became the first step in changing my own world,” said Pablo Enrique Martinez Bojorquez. 

“Boren is so important to me because it is a way that I can further my knowledge about my future career field. As an aspiring Portuguese interpreter, it is extremely important that I expand my Portuguese fluency - what better way to do this than to live in Brazil! I am very grateful to have received funding to be able to travel to Brazil and continue learning a language that is so special to me. Boren is beneficial to me because instead of paying for my Flagship program out of pocket, I now have the financial help to experience Brazil and its culture to the fullest and not having finances impede my experience! I want to say thank you again to Boren for selecting me to receive such a generous and prestigious scholarship,” Hayward said. 

“Boren is so important for my educational and future career goals. Without it, I would not be able to complete my Capstone year in Brazil. I am so beyond grateful for this opportunity provided by the scholarship and I cannot wait to embark on my professional journey abroad,” Devlin said. 

The Language Flagship programs, are a public/private partnership sponsored by the National Security Education Program of the Department of Defense and administered by the Institute of International Education. The program seeks to graduate students with professional-level proficiency in a language critical to U.S. national security, including Portuguese.

The U of A has nearly 50-year history teaching Portuguese, with a multidisciplinary curriculum that has attracted about 1,600 students into Portuguese language and culture courses over the last five years. 

Jasmine Linabary, Assistant Professor in the Department of Public and Applied Humanities, will receive the 2025 Helen Award for Emerging Feminist Scholarship. 

The award, given by the International Communication Association’s Feminist Scholarship Division, “recognizes and supports those whose early research and leadership demonstrate strong contributions to date and significant promise for future development in feminist communication and/or media studies.” The award will be presented in June at the International Communication Association conference in Denver. 

“We were very impressed with your work, including its/your collaborative nature, and connection with feminism, feminist scholarship, and feminist activism,” said an announcement from the award committee. 

According to a nomination letter, Linabary’s contributions to feminist communication scholarship include co-editing a special issue and forum on feminist organization communication for Management Communication Quarterly and leading an interdisciplinary research team to explore the use of hashtags for feminist activism in response to gender-based violence. Her first-authored article about postfeminist contradictions in the hashtag #WhyIStayed has become often cited among feminist new media scholars as well as in work related to domestic violence and online and offline organizing.

In addition to her academic publications, her nominator spoke to Linabary’s collaborative work with community partners, including her long-term partnership with the nonprofit World Pulse, an independent, women-led social network for social change.

“As an engaged activist-scholar, Linabary is pushing the field forward in her use of feminist participatory action research. Thus, her influence on feminist scholarship has multiple impacts, as she is not just contributing new knowledge on issues of gender equity; she is also creating new knowledge on how to do this work differently, specifically by engaging the voices of those most affected by the issues themselves,” Linabary’s nominator wrote. “This type of creativity and leadership is unique in our field, making Linabary a go-to voice for participatory research and engaged methods.” 

Last year, Linabary received the Dorrance Dean’s Award for Research & Entrepreneurialism from the College of Humanities for her project “Engaging Voices from the ‘Margin to the Center’: Activating Methods of the Humanities to #ShiftthePower.”