“La Tertulia” was the name of a coffeeshop/bookstore near the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras. There, students gathered to discuss artistic projects, academic ideas, the books they had been reading, and cultural events happening throughout the island. This environment incentivized projects, friendly debates, and unforeseen alliances. It seems that open dialogue plus a relaxed setting equals intellectual inspiration and creative motivation.
It’s no secret that our Spanish and Portuguese department has been facing a lot of challenges, including the recent COVID pandemic. Suddenly, everyone was working from home, interactions decreased, and all of us had to deal with the emotional and physical challenges of facing a bleak new world. After things started improving and we could return to our workplace, something had changed. Our open space was now a desert, with few people wandering by now and then.
It turns out that graduate students were psychologically drained, and, perhaps because of this, recovering a sense of proximity seemed harder than expected. Yet, after the mental health meetings organized for graduate students, it seemed evident that one of the many things affecting our mood was the debilitated sense of community.
Following one of the mental health meetings, Professor Kathleen Myers had organized a pizza gathering on our second floor. As this was happening, I had the chance to informally talk to her about how back in Puerto Rico graduate students often met for coffee to talk about classes, ambitions, and whatever was on our minds. Doing that, I thought, made it easy to engage with each other within our workspace. Graduate students (and even professors) felt comfortable having small conversations, spontaneous discussions, and sharing academic materials. So I suggested how having a space like La Tertulia in our offices would help graduate students rebuild unity. Professor Myers immediately told me to plan a pilot project. I did, we sent it to the chair, and the department gave us the green light.
Thus, Café Tertulia was born. We chose two Mondays for the two remaining months of the semester to meet for an hour in our conference room. There, coffee, tea, pastries, and other snacks were offered. Each day we had different background music playing, including modern tango, Latin jazz, bebop, bossa nova, and salsa. People came and went as they pleased. Linguistics and Literature graduate students took a break from work and mingled in a relaxed environment. Without a doubt, it felt good to share our interests, learn from each other, exchange advice, and discuss upcoming projects.
The College of Arts