Spanish and Portuguese Joins First Thursdays with College of Arts & Sciences
Laura Gurzynski-Weiss

During fall 2019, the Department of Spanish and Portuguese participated for the first time in the College of Arts & Sciences' First Thursdays events. September and October were focused on recruiting for our classes, majors, and minors. Students learned where Spanish, Portuguese, and Catalan can take them with an interactive map, competitive quizzes to test their dialect knowledge of Spanish, in-person advising for study abroad programs around the world, and even private salsa lessons!

In November's iteration, our colleagues collaborated with the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies and Childs Elementary teacher Gabriela Coolidge to celebrate the Mexican tradition of Día de los Muertos. We had phenomenal traffic to our booth, great follow-up from the events, and were even featured on IU's Instagram story and Twitter pages. We hope to share our passion for language, linguistics, literature, and cultural studies again with First Thursdays during fall 2020! Please come and see us when you are in town. We would love to highlight your visit with an "ask an alumnus" interview about how you are using your Spanish, Portuguese, and/or Catalan after your time at IU!

For more information on First Thursdays, please visit the following link from the College of Arts & Sciences webpage: https://artsandhumanities.indiana.edu/council-programs/first-thursdays/index.html