Due to COVID-19 and the subsequent campus closure, the Department was unable to host its usual awards ceremony and celebration this April with glowing words and mini pastries in the Indiana Memorial Union. Instead, we gathered faculty members’ written comments about our student award winners and photos from the students themselves to create a special awards webpage. Please click here to find out all about our wonderful student award recipients and the prizes they received, supported by the kind donations of alumni and friends. As always, the Department also bestowed one award to a faculty member. The 2019-20 Trustees Teaching Award went to Eileen Julien.

This year we also had four students complete research projects to earn departmental honors in French or Italian: Ben Ibrulj worked on the poetry of Mallarmé, Audrey Hood explored themes in Phèdre, Preston Gilts wrote an analysis of Turkish-Italian filmmaker Ferzan Ozpetek’s works, and Hunter Pace researched French cookbooks through the ages.

The Department also celebrated the graduation of thirteen French majors and four Italian majors in a virtual manner this spring, in lieu of our usual in-person reception at the University Club. We asked our BA graduates to film short videos of themselves talking about their time in FRIT and their plans for the future, which we then edited together with comments by our Directors of Undergraduate Studies, our Chair, and our student advisor. You can watch the video and see a list of graduates here.

Special thanks to new staff member Amelia Weller (French B.A., 2019) for both preparing the awards web page and editing the video!