On Wednesday, October 23, in the University Club inside the Indiana Memorial Union, a new class of French students was inducted into the Pi Delta Phi national French honor society. This was the sixth induction ceremony since the Omicron Upsilon Chapter was founded at IU in Spring 2015, and the 18 néophytes of 2019 bring the total membership of the chapter up to 120.
The ceremony was organized by interim chapter moderator Professor Barbara Vance, aided by FRIT staff members Lisa Huffman (also a Pi Delta Phi member) and Isabel Piedmont-Smith. Professor Vance is filling in this year for Professor Margaret Gray, who is directing the department’s Aix-en-Provence overseas study program. Professor Vance was assisted by Professor Eric MacPhail and two graduate students in the French/Francophone Studies program who are also Pi Delta Phi members: Timothy Lomeli and Cristina Robu. Perhaps the highlight of the afternoon was the musical entertainment by yet another PDP member and French graduate student, Victoria Lagrange, who played the piano and sang a selection of French chansons by Edith Piaf, Jacqueline François, and Cora Vaucaire.
“It’s a great privilege for me to welcome these talented and dedicated students of French into Pi Delta Phi,” said Professor Vance. “The department very much appreciates their many individual and collective contributions to the quality of our French program.”
The College of Arts