Ohio Wesleyan University | Department of Modern Foreign Languages

Dr. Bellocq passed away on November 27th, 2011. She will be sadly missed by her colleagues, students and friends. Her dedication to teaching French literature and all things French will be long remembered.

Born and raised in northern Germany, Dr. Colvin came to the U.S. in 1995. She graduated from the University of Delaware in 2002 with a B.A. in Spanish Education and earned her Ph.D. in Spanish from the University of California, Irvine in 2009. She teaches courses in Spanish as well as in Latin American literature and culture. Her area of specialization is 20^th century narrative from the Southern Cone, and she is particularly interested in the representation of political violence in post-dictatorial narrative, the child in literature and film as well as the construction of urban space in the Latin American novel. She has published an article entitled “Memory and Fantasy: The Imaginative Reconstruction of a Lost Past in Las cartas que no llegaron.” She spent a semester in Granada, Spain, as an undergraduate student and has since traveled to Mexico, Chile, Argentina and Uraguay.

Dr. Counselman earned a B.A. in Spanish and French from the University of South Alabama and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Spanish linguistics from The Pennsylvania State University. His dissertation was entitled Improving Pronunciation Instruction in the Second Language Classroom. As an experimental linguist, his research focuses on second language acquisition and speech perception and production. His primary interests include examining the factors that contribute to the perception of a foreign accent and investigating ways to help students reduce their foreign accent in a second language. Dr. Counselman also enjoys teaching language and linguistics and has experience teaching Spanish and French language courses as well as teaching topics in Spanish and Romance linguistics. At OWU he teaches Spanish language courses from beginning to advanced levels as well as a course on Romance linguistics.

Dr. Courtney retired 2008 but occasionally teaches a French or Italian course as needed. Her specialty is the literature of the Medieval and Renaissance periods. Her current research growing out of her ongoing involvement in the Women's Studies Program which she founded, focuses on literature by women in cross-cultural perspective. She has lived and traveled extensively in France and also has traveled throughout Italy and other European countries. She holds the Robert Hayward Chair in Modern Foreign Languages.

Donna Donnelly received her B.S. in Spanish Education from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and her M.A. in Spanish with a concentration in Spanish linguistics from the Pennsylvania State University. As part of her undergraduate degree she completed a semester of study at the Universidad de Valladolid in Valladolid, Spain. Donna comes to Ohio Wesleyan with extensive foreign language teaching experience in both Spanish and French. She has taught Spanish at all levels from elementary through university in New York, Connecticut and Pennsylvania.

In 2004 Donna founded LEAD, the Language Exchange Alliance of Delaware to serve our Spanish majors and minors. Through LEAD Ohio Wesleyan students are paired with Hispanics from the Delaware community in mutually beneficial one-on-one language exchanges. In 2007 Donna received a Lilly grant to study the religion and culture of the Maya at the Yucatan Summer Institute in Merida, Mexico. Donna joined Ohio Wesleyan University in 2002 and teaches introductory Spanish courses in the Modern Foreign Language Department. She also teaches Foreign Language in the Elementary School, EDUC 378, in the Education Department.

Dr. Fete passed away in December, 2011. She will be missed by her colleagues, students, and friends. Her dedication to teaching and to OWU will remain an inspiration to all.

Mrs. Forman joined the department in January of 2012. You can contact her at x3667.

Carla Onorato received her B.S. in Computer Science from Saint Peter’s College in New Jersey and her M.A. in Italian Literature from The Ohio State University.

Ms. Onorato comes to Ohio Wesleyan with 20 years foreign language teaching experience. She has been teaching Italian at OSU since 1990 and is still teaching at all levels from elementary through advanced. She is the assistant to the Director of the Italian Elementary Language program at OSU and Study Abroad advisor.

Ms. Onorato is the co-author of the Italian college textbook Avanti! that is widely adopted by universities and high schools nationwide.

Born in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, México, Professor Rojas received his B.A. and M.A. in Spanish from the University of Texas at El Paso. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Arizona in 2002 and was the Andrew W. Mellon Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor at Amherst College, Massachusetts, from 2002 – 2004. Rojas has also been invited to teach literature seminars at the Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca, and at the Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua, México.

Professor Rojas Joo has a primary area of specialization in Latin American Literature and its cultures and secondary areas in Literary Theory, Colonial Literature and Peninsular Literature of the XIX^th and XX^th Centuries. Presently his main research and personal interests are Mexican and Border Studies, Latin American Poetry and Creative Writing.

Rojas’ scholar work has been published in literary magazines, reviews and anthologies of several countries and as a poet has published Vertebral River / Río vertebral (2009, 2002), Ceremonial of Wind / Ceremonial de viento (2006), Santuarios desierto mar (2004) and Lluvia de lunas (1999). In 2004 Rojas co-edited the anthology Canto a una ciudad en el desierto, a poetic denouncement against femicide. During the Spring of 2011 Rojas was honored by the Universade de Coimbra, Portugal, as the resident poet.

Chuck Vedder is very happy to return to Ohio Wesleyan as a part-time Spanish instructor after 25 years away. From 1979 to 1984 he was the Associate Director of OWU's English Language Program (ELP) for Foreign Students. In 2009 he retired from Otterbein College, where, as Director of International Student Programs for 22 years, he was in charge of international student advising, immigration matters, exchange programs, study abroad, and faculty and staff visas. He also taught Spanish every year at Otterbein.

Mr. Vedder holds a B.S. in Education (1969) and an M.A. in Spanish and Spanish American literature (1971) from The Ohio State University. His undergraduate career included studying for a quarter in Mexico City, and he has traveled in many Spanish-speaking and other countries. He is a classical and jazz pianist and composer and has played extensively in the Columbus area and elsewhere around the world

Debra Vedder has been with the department part time since the fall of 2003. She taught at Westerville South High School before coming to Ohio Wesleyan. Debra received her B.A. in Spanish Education from Otterbein College, and her M.A. from Ashland University. While at Ashland, she researched the link between musical ability and foreign language ability. She has traveled extensively throughout the Spanish-speaking world. Debra teaches introductory Spanish courses at Ohio Wesleyan.

With broad expertise in Romance Languages, Dr. Wiebe tought French and Spanish language courses, as well as courses in French literature and civilization. She has taught Computer Literacy in the Mathematics/Computing Science Department, and has served as Ohio Wesleyan's Director of Academic Computing. She has also served as Chair of the Department of Modern Foreign Languages. Among her scholarly interests are the baroque, French classicism, Spanish literature of the Golden Age, and the interrelationships among the arts, especially poetry and painting. She has traveled in France, Spain, Mexico, Germany, and Bolivia. In 1993 she received a Mellon grant for the development of computer programs to supplement foreign language study. In 1992 she received a TEW grant for foreign language software development using Toolbook© software. She has attended workshops at Middlebury College on Computer Technology and Foreign Language Teaching, and served as the Modern Foreign Language Department's Mellon Computer Mentor for 1996-1998. During Spring Break 1997 she and Dr. McGinniss took a group of students to the Texas/Mexico border to study border issues in conjunction with the Rio Grande Border Witness Program. Dr. Wiebe took another group to the border during Spring Break 1998, returned for a third and fourth time during Spring Break 1999 and 2000. In November 1998 she spent a week in Paris visiting six Ohio Wesleyan students who were studying abroad during that semester. She recently spent two weeks in Paris and the Loire Valley in June 2000. She accompanied students on a 10-day spring break mission trip to Santa Cruz, Bolivia in March 2002 and a spring break mission group to El Salvador in March 2008. Dr. Wiebe retired in 2009 but continues to teach part-time.

Born in Germany, Dr. Wolber came to the United States in 1977. In addition to teaching all levels of German language, literature, and civilization, he is involved in research on comparative literature and inter-disciplinary studies. Recent scholarly presentations and publications have focused on the psychological disposition of 20th century men and women as evidenced in literature. Dr. Wolber is also seriously pursuing a career as a writer and has published many poems both in German and in German-American periodicals. He has traveled extensively throughout Eastern and Western Europe.

Dr. Wu earned a B.A. in Foreign Languages and Literature from National Sun Yat-Sen University in Taiwan and M.A. degrees in Teaching English to the Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and Japanese Pedagogy and a Ph.D. degree in Foreign and Second Language Education from The Ohio State University. Dr. Wu's research interests include Teacher Education, second language acquisition in advanced learners, and Chinese pedagogy. Prior to coming to OWU, Dr. Wu taught at Bentley University, National Taiwan Normal University, and The Ohio State University. At OWU Dr. Wu will be developing the Chinese Program and teaching courses of Chinese language and culture.