UNDERGRADUATE RESOURCES AND OPPORTUNITIES
Study Abroad
In order to increase language proficiency and cultural literacy, all students are strongly encouraged to spend a semester abroad via one of the University-approved programs.
Community Interpreter Internship with the Villanova Law School Clinics
The Community Interpreter Internship is a partnership between the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures and the five clinics in Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law—particularly with the Clinic for Asylum, Refugee and Emigrant Services (CARES) and the Farmworker Legal Aid Clinic (FLACS). Undergraduate students with advanced proficiency in Spanish and an interest in helping the Hispanic community act as translators and interpreters between clients and their student lawyers.
Contact: M. Laura Lenardón, Ph.D.
Learn more about the Community Interpreter Internship program.
Language Tables
The Department encourages students and other members of the Villanova community to take part in the language tables. Language tables are the best option to practice what you have learned in class without the formalities of the classroom. There are three language tables each week. To learn more, please contact Anne-Marie Joyce.
LUV Lab
The Language Use and Variation Lab invites interested students to join our weekly lab meetings, where we review research on language variation and work collaboratively toward uncovering the mysteries of how language changes and evolves. Students are encouraged to get involved in ongoing research, including linguistic analyses of Hispanic speakers in Philadelphia and laboratory studies of cognitive factors in language variation. Please contact Grant Berry, PhD, if interested.
Spanish Club
The Spanish Club offers great opportunities for student leadership and for students to get involved in campus life, meet new people, help the Hispanic community, and learn Hispanic values and traditions. The club promotes opportunities including service projects with Hispanic and Latino communities; lectures about Hispanic culture; field trips to museums, workshops, and theaters; speech contests; culinary events; and salsa and tango dance lessons.
Hispanic Honor Society: Sigma Delta Pi
The Sigma Delta Pi National Hispanic Honor Society was created to acknowledge superior scholastic performance in the fields of Spanish language, Hispanic literatures, and cultures. The national honor society is open to membership at institutions of higher learning in the United States and Canada. The Society encourages college students to acquire a greater interest in, and a deeper understanding of, the cultures, arts, and history that comprises the Hispanic world. The organization recognizes outstanding undergraduate scholarship in Spanish, by awarding annually the Sigma Delta Pi Award for Scholarship.
Membership in Sigma Delta Pi is a wonderful opportunity for students to truly immerse themselves in the Spanish language and its cultures and to earn national recognition for their scholarship. New members are inducted every spring.
College and University Resources
In addition to resources and opportunities through the Spanish Department, Villanova provides support to undergraduate students in all aspects of their collegiate experience and beyond through the centralized services of the Office for Undergraduate Students, Office of Education Abroad and Career Center.