Faculty Spotlight

Faculty Spotlight: Sandra Ortiz

Senior lecturer Sandra Ortiz joined the Department in 2006 and since then has proven herself as an outstanding teacher and supervisor of Spanish language courses and of “Spanish for the Health Professions,” a course which she designed. In 2024, she was inducted into the highly competitive organization known as IU’s Faculty Academy on Excellence in Teaching (FACET), recognizing her years of dedicated work. As their website states, “FACET is a dynamic, collaborative community of inducted faculty dedicated to and recognized for excellence in teaching and learning.

FACET asserts that excellence in teaching and learning requires dedication to diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ). This commitment infuses FACET’s advocacy for pedagogical innovation and student success, cultivation of the scholarship of teaching and learning, and advancement of professional and personal growth.”

With her induction, Sandra joins nine other members of our Department who have been inducted into FACET: Catherine Larson (1991), Edward Friedman (1995), Joseph Clements (2004), Kim Geeslin (2005), Melissa Dinverno (2006), Israel F. Herrera (2014), Virginia Hojas (2019), Allen Davis (2021), and Laura Gurzynski-Weiss (2023).

This year, Sandra was also awarded a Mosaic Fellowship, in which faculty work together to explore, evaluate and model strategies for active learning to apply them to online learning environments.

The Department is very proud of Sandra’s accomplishments and commitment to Spanish-language teaching and innovation.

Department of Spanish and Portuguese

Faculty Spotlight