Robert Stephan, Associate Professor of Practice in the Department of Religious Studies and Classics, has received the Archaeological Institute of America’s 2025 Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award.

The award, presented at the AIA’s 126th Annual Meeting in January, is the latest in a string of teaching awards for Stephan, following: the 2024 Leicester and Kathryn Sherrill Creative Teaching Award, the 2021 University of Arizona Five Star Faculty Award, the 2021 Gerald J. Swanson Prize for Teaching Excellence, the 2020 College of Humanities Distinguished Teaching Award, and the 2019 College of Humanities Distinguished Advising/Mentoring Award.

Stephan, who excels at creating an engaging and active learning environment in large classes, is teaching nearly 1,500 undergraduate students this semester. Currently, his favorite class to teach is CLAS 150C1: Pyramids and Mummies, an introduction to ancient Egyptian history and archaeology, he told the AIA.

Stephan is exploring new ways to make archaeology exciting and relevant for a new generation (and a new demographic) of students, especially those who may never get to see these sites in person. Using video games and interactive, virtual reality videos, he’s bringing the ancient world to students, on campus and in their own homes.

“While most of my students won’t major in Classics, History, or Archaeology, the more people who have an appreciation for archaeology and the diversity of world cultures, the better off we are as a society. Teaching archaeology in these accessible, interactive ways is my way of building that appreciation,” he told the AIA.

Stephan recalled his own introduction to archaeology, when he went from a disengaged students in the back of the classroom to near the front of the room, hanging on the professor’s every word. That professor, Sue Alcock, just happens to be the 1999 recipient of this very same Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award.

“At the time, I never imagined that I would be one of those ‘future archaeologists.’ But as I’ve come to understand, teaching archaeology is like running a dig—helping students excavate curiosity and knowledge, layer by layer, until they uncover the rich story beneath the surface. Now, I hope to convey that thrill of discover to my own students, so that they leave each class having unearthed something profound—not only about archaeology but also about their own passion for learning about the world,” Stephan said.

Eddy White, Professor of Practice in the Department of Public and Applied Humanities, is one of three new members on the Arizona Humanities Board of Directors.

White follows Dorrance Dean Alain-Philippe Durand and Albrecht Classen, University Distinguished Professor in the Department of German Studies, as College of Humanities faculty to serve on the AZ Humanities board in recent years.

White has been a teacher for more than 30 years, including at universities in Canada and Japan. Since joining the Department of Public & Applied Humanities, he has been engaged in his primary passion for teaching and learning. This has included creating and teaching new courses, such as:

• Car Nation: The Automobile and the American Experience
• Friendship: Life’s Fundamental Bond
• Working: The Rewards and Costs of Employment
• Weird Stuff: How to Think About the Supernatural, the Paranormal, and the Mysterious
• Motorcycle Culture: Free Spirits, Easy Riders, and the Human Experience

“I moved to Arizona in 2011 from Canada and have happily made my home here,” White said. “I have been thinking about ways of giving back to the people and state that have given so much to me and serving on the AZ Humanities Board is the perfect opportunity to do that. This new role also fits very well with my position in the Public and Applied Humanities Department, which, like AZ Humanities, is also focused on understanding and describing the human experience.”

White joins the board alongside Susan Ricci, Executive Director of the Mesa Historical Museum, and Paul Taliercio, Curator at the George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center.

“We are more than thrilled to have these talented individuals join our leadership team. Our board members all share a commitment to enhancing the cultural life of Arizona, and their skills and passion for the humanities are exactly what we need!” said AZ Humanities Executive Director Brenda Thomson.

For Yalitza Ramírez, choosing to pursue her degree while staying in Nogales gave her a new vision for how she could make a difference in the community she’s always loved.

“Nogales, with its unique border culture and close-knit community, has always inspired my passion for helping others,” she said. “My journey within the humanities has prepared me to become an individual who is ready to go out and give back to the community that has nurtured me so much. The humanities opened my eyes to the complexity of social change and the diverse ways in which people can make a difference.”

Ramírez, who transferred as a junior from Pima Community College, says taking a non-traditional path to completing her degree has made all the difference. Graduating with a major in Interdisciplinary Studies, with Social Behavior and Human Understanding as her emphasis, Ramírezwas named the College of Humanities Outstanding Senior for Winter 2024.

“The humanities have taught us how to be at ease with uncertainty,” she told fellow graduates during the convocation speech. “We go out into the world today with the skills to take on the complex world we have inherited, and ready and capable of making a difference. We live in a time when understanding each other has never been more important, and we stand as living proof that what we have learned is more than the sum of all its parts.”

Ramírez expertly navigated the challenges facing both transfer students and distance students, using her natural leadership abilities both in the classroom and in her job assisting and mentoring fellow students in Nogales, Douglas and Chandler, said Victoria Meyer, Associate Director of the Interdisciplinary Studies Program, who nominated Ramírez for the award.

“I have not encountered another student in my decade at the U of A who has taken so much initiative and impacted her fellow students in such a short time,” Meyer said. “Yalitza embodies how the humanities can help students harness their potential, envision a meaningful career and apply their knowledge to benefit others in the real world.”

Meyer taught Ramírez in at least one class each semester, starting spring 2023, and said she always goes the extra mile, for classes, work or a growing number of extra-curricular activities.

“Yalitza never shies away from a challenge or waivers in her intellectual curiosity as she takes diverse courses through IDS. She often stays after class to ask questions and will excitedly share what she was learning in another class,” she said. “She quickly adapts to new types of information and modes of presentation and has a natural ability to think critically in the classroom and apply that knowledge to real-world situations.”

Ramírez said her ability to access education and stay close to home as a transfer student came with a responsibility to seek out those in need and use her education to offer help.

“My education through the Interdisciplinary Studies program has further equipped me with the tools necessary to understand and address these needs and perspectives on a broader scale. The IDS program has taught me that in order to address a problem, one must look at things from several perspectives, this is why cross-cultural communication is so important, especially in the borderlands,” she said.

Outside the classroom, her time working as a student assistant not only provided valuable experience applying her education to the real world, in real time, but helped inspire her next steps.

“My core values of collaboration, inquiry, adaptability, and compassion are embodied not just in the humanities but captured uniquely in my interdisciplinary studies degree,” she said. “I firmly believe that my humanities education will be integral to improving lives and opening doors within the community. However, education alone is not enough. By pursuing a career in law, I aim to bridge this gap, ensuring that legal and social support systems work together to uplift individuals and families.”

By Kelsi Vanada
Program Director, American Literary Translators Association

A poem in translation is a rewriting of the original—at once the same poem and a new poem. “It’s a sibling. It’s not a twin,” as described by Danish translator Katrine Øgaard Jensen, winner of the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) 2018 National Translation Award in Poetry.

ALTA translators like Øgaard Jensen are working to help world literature find its way to Anglophone readers who could never experience it otherwise. Tucson has been ALTA’s home since 2019, when we affiliated with the U of A College of Humanities. 

The “sibling” nature of translation helps me think about it as an inherently collaborative and multi-disciplinary act—both values that ALTA shares with the College of Humanities. The U of A now has 25 ALTA Faculty Affiliates, faculty and staff who are committed to teaching translation in their classrooms, giving students the opportunity to expand their sense of what this art form makes possible. 

In addition to serving as ALTA’s Program Director, I am a translator myself, primarily of Spanish-language poetry. I discovered literary translation when I was in graduate school. I took my first translation workshop and was “hooked.” I had never considered that my love of the Spanish language and of Spanish-language literature could be combined with my love of writing poems. Translating poetry allows me to work in collaboration with another writer and their words—it’s creative writing, with different constraints. 

My current translation project was awarded a 2024 Translation Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. I’m translating Spanish poet Berta García Faet’s 2021 poetry collection Una pequeña personalidad linda [A Little Pretty Personality]. It’s her seventh book, the work of a poet in the prime of her writing life. The book’s central motif is a reinvention of the image of the medieval trobairitz: a wandering narrator singing as she goes through the world in search of something not yet named, a pilgrimage through a riddle of a universe that seeks to impose its conventions on a voice longing to be free.

García Faet and I have known each other since 2016, when I translated one of her earlier collections, La edad de merecer, which became The Eligible Age in English. I’m lucky to get to work closely with her, and we’ve become friends. Last spring, I visited her in Madrid to talk through my progress on the translations together. Berta holds a Ph.D. in Hispanic Studies, and the book is full of medieval Spanish and Spanish words of Arabic origin, alongside neologisms she’s invented. It’s a delightful challenge.

This translation demands that I draw upon skills I developed in my own Humanities education: research skills that take me into other disciplines, linguistic skills, creativity and problem-solving in collaboration, and also the empathy needed to immerse myself in another's words—all skills that literary translation can foster, at the U of A and beyond.

Join Kelsi Vanada this spring for a Humanities Seminar Program course. “Encountering World Literature in Translation” will be Thursdays between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m., from Jan. 30 through Feb. 20.

Germans love the Southwestern United States.

At Kartchner Caverns State Park, the spectacular limestone cave about 60 miles southeast of Tucson, German tourists are among the most frequent international visitors. Last spring, park rangers realized that translation cards that had been used for two decades were outdated and slightly incorrect.

Park Ranger Max Hewitt said some of the Kartchner Caverns materials in English were being updated, which made it a good time to evaluate the materials in other languages. For non-English-speaking visitors, Germans are among the most common, along with Spanish speakers and French-Canadians. So, Hewitt emailed the Department of German Studies and connected with Barbara Citera, Associate Professor of Practice who was teaching German for Professional Purposes.

The class, taught in German, focuses on career-oriented projects, with students preparing a professional portfolio, working on interview and job-search skills. Other projects involve research and class presentations into connections between Arizona and selected German companies and organizations. The Kartchner Caverns project fit in perfectly with the other work and goals of the course, Citera said.

“It’s a great class anyway, but this project really created some additional excitement. It was so much fun for the students to be able to use their German in Arizona and do something with the language that helps the state as well,” Citera said. “You don’t have to go to Germany to do something meaningful. You can do it right here and that was an a-ha moment for the students.”

The class visited Kartchner Caverns, which opened to the public as a state park in 1999, in April, working in groups to translate and re-envision information about Big Room. 

“It was really wonderful. The students made all this happen,” Hewitt said. “They asked a lot of really good questions about cave science and tourism and why it’s important. We had a great time when they were on site working with us.”

Maddix Sledge, a German Studies and engineering major, said the project was not only an amazing experience, but something that demonstrated how language skills can be useful in unexpected ways. 

“My class and I were able to leave a genuine mark on our state for years to come rather than staying in our educational comfort zones around campus. This partnership with Kartchner Caverns showed me how seemingly random and wide the application of a foreign language can be,” he said.

The partnership between German Studies and Kartchner Caverns worked out so well it will continue. For spring semester 2025, another group of students will work on German language materials to help guide visitors through the Rotunda Room.

“Right now we’re working on Kartchner caverns, but there are other opportunities to work with Arizona State Parks in the future. It’s a great opportunity for us to collaborate,” Citera said. “The Parks service can use the university as a resource and the students bring so much to the table. It’s really fun and meaningful to apply German language and transcultural skills to projects like this.”

Octreyvian Killian, an honors student triple majoring in German Studies, Philosophy and Literacy, Learning, and Leadership, has received the 2024 Centennial Achievement Undergraduate Award.

The annual awards, established in 1984, recognize students who have demonstrated integrity, persistence and a commitment to their communities and families. Killian, who expects to graduate in May, is one of two undergraduate students and seven graduate students are honored this year. Undergraduate awardees each receive a $250 stipend and an engraved plaque.

Born in Salt Lake City, Killian experienced family and health challenges from a young age. Struggling with illness and intermittent homelessness throughout his life, Killian has been forced to take many breaks from his educational pursuits.

Since coming to the University of Arizona, he has worked as an undergraduate teaching assistant and as a tutor at the Strategic Alternative Learning Techniques, or SALT, Center, where he has supported first-years and other students with disabilities to build the skills, techniques and confidence needed succeed.

At the U of A, he has diligently advocated for equity and access for disabled and LGBTQIA+ students. As a preceptor, he created a system for more equitable testing processes that allowed students with dyslexia and other disabilities multiple ways to demonstrate content comprehension.

In his work with UROC (Undergraduate Research Opportunities Consortium) as an AWARDSS-PLUS fellow, Killian has been conducting ongoing research into the discrepancy between fixed and transfer student graduation rates to aid his fellow transfer students in continuing their education and completing their degrees. Although this portion of his research has recently concluded, he hopes to conduct a follow-up study to investigate solutions for the systemic challenges his study uncovered.

Killian is also in an accelerated master’s program in philosophy, which he plans to complete in 2026. After his master’s, Killian hopes to pursue a doctorate in either philosophy or educational psychology. He also hopes to study mentorship in order to reinvigorate higher education and create more opportunities for transformative experiences.

Beppe Cavatorta, Professor of Italian, is the 2024 recipient of the Distinguished Service Award from the American Association of Teachers of Italian.

The national recognition is given annually in two categories, College/University and K-12. The AATI, founded in 1924, is unique in the field for including teachers at all levels, both high school and university, Cavatorta said.

“The Committee especially recognized Dr. Cavatorta’s invaluable, tireless, exemplary, and distinguished service and commitment to the AATI; dedication and distinguished record as teacher, mentor, scholar, and advocate of Italian Studies; and collaborative spirit and collegiality,” according to the award announcement.

Cavatorta was previously elected president of the American Association of Teachers of Italian, with a three-year term beginning in January 2018, and also served as a regional representative. Additionally, he’s been involved with the Advanced Placement test in Italian since it began in 2006, including serving as Chief Reader for several years.

“This association is what best represents Italian in the United States. Having the possibility to work with high school teachers has been one of the perks of the association. For me, it has been a great opportunity to learn what high school teachers do, support their work, and, at the same time, learn from them,” he said.

The award is one of the few national awards given to scholars of Italian, and the only one given not for scholarly performance, but for service and for teaching, which Cavatorta said he’s most passionate about. And with the University of Arizona having one of the largest Italian programs in the country in terms of majors, it’s a passion shared by all faculty members.

“We have extremely talented people teaching our language courses and that makes students fall in love with Italian,” Cavatorta said. “We try to make everything relevant to the students and their lives and we offer courses based on how Italy is today. The main goal for us is for students to master the language so they can go to Italy and experience it the way it’s meant to be experienced.”

For example, one of the courses Cavatorta is teaching this semester is one he was initially hired to teach, 310 – Italian Encounters: Spoken Italian in Context. The course explores Italy through the decades, from the 1940s to today, through the lens of literature, art, music, cinema and more.

In the spring, he’ll teach a section of the popular general-education course 160D – Food for Thought in Italian Culture. Again using literature, cinema and more, Cavatorta and students will explore Italian food from the Middle Ages until today, learning the myriad ways food impacts culture and history. Food for Thought is a course that was created with input from the entire Italian faculty.

For another ongoing project, Italian in Wonderland, Cavatorta is collaborating with fellow faculty members Maria Letizia Bellocchio and Borbi Gaspar to create a digital platform that transforms Italian classes to deliver language instruction combined with relevant, up-to-date cultural lessons. The project, funded by a three-year, $150,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, represents a fundamental shift away from expensive textbooks to modules that can be updated regularly as culture changes and will be an open resource for Italian teachers anywhere.

“Having an Italian major or minor is great for students,” Cavatorta said. “When they reach the fifth semester, it’s really like a big family. The classes become closely knit and everyone knows each other.”

The College of Humanities annually recognizes exemplary teaching, research and service with the Helen H. Chatfield Awards. The awards were created in 2021 to honor the memory of alumna Helen H. Chatfield, a successful investor and philanthropist who graduated from the University of Arizona in 1968 with degree in Spanish. Chatfield passed away in 2020 and left a gift to the College of Humanities to create the Helen H. Chatfield Endowment.

The Chatfield Award for Anti-Discrimination Research, Teaching, or Service
Arum Park – Associate Professor, Religious Studies and Classics

The Chatfield Impact Award
Phyllis Taoua – Professor, French and Italian

The Chatfield Outstanding Tenured Researcher of the Year Award
Rae Dachille – Associate Professor, Religious Studies and Classics | East Asian Studies

The Chatfield Outstanding Untenured Researcher of the Year Award
Joshua Schlachet – Assistant Professor, East Asian Studies