Awards

Our graduate student, Oscar Santos, have been selected to receive the 2012 Graduate Student Minority Achievement Award to recognize the many outstanding contributions and accomplishments he has made for the University.  The awards ceremony will be held on Thursday, May 10th at 4:00pm – 5:30pm in the Maryland Room, Marie Mount Hall. Oscar will also get a congratulatory letter from President Loh in a few days. Please feel free to invite your family, friends, and colleagues to the ceremony.  Invitations will be forwarded to all vice-presidents, deans, directors, and department chairs,as well as many other members of the campus community.

Felicitaciones, te lo mereces, Oscar.

Congratulations to Ana Acedo, Rocío Gordon and Ana Patricia Rodríguez!

Ana Acedo

One of Ana’s students, Charlotte Kiernan, a rising senior in the College of Education, has been chosen as a 2012-2013 Philip Merrill Presidential Scholar. Ana has been named by Charlotte as the faculty mentor who has made the most impact on her academic achievement. This highly selective program is made possible by the generosity of the Philip Merrill family and recognizes academic excellence in our students and the important role that teachers and faculty have as mentors.  Felicidades Ana.

Rocío Gordon

Rocío is one of our graduate students and she was awarded the prestigious Ann D. Wylie Dissertation Fellowship. Ann G. Wylie Dissertation Fellowships are one-semester awards intended to support outstanding doctoral students who are in the final stages of writing their dissertation and whose primary source of support is unrelated to their dissertation. Wylie Dissertation Fellowships carry a stipend of $10,000 plus candidacy tuition remission and $800 toward the cost of health insurance. The Graduate School awards approximately 40 Wylie Dissertation Fellowships per year. Felicidades Rocío.

Ana Patricia Rodríguez

The Office of Multi-ethnic Student Educatin (OMSE) 2012 Academic Excellence Awards committee selected our Ana Patricia Rodríguez as the recipient of the Outstanding University Faculty Member Award.  Based on the nominations of undergraduate students, this award is bestowed on an individual that has contributed to the academic excellence of multi-ethnic students at the University of Maryland.  Please note this is a highly-competitive selection process and well-deserved based on her ongoing dedication and service to multi-ethnic students. Felicidades Ana Patricia.

Un abrazo a este trío. Nos sentimos orgullosos por sus logros.

The Department of Spanish and Portuguese is pleased to announce that Cristina Burneo has been awarded a Snouffer
Dissertation Fellowship for 2010-2011!  She will receive a 9.5 month stipend for the year, in addition to ten tuition remission credits per semester.

Her dissertation is titled, “Voyage towards Meaning:  Biographical Reconstruction and Bilingual Poetry in Four Andean Poets,” and is directed by Prof. Jorge Aguilar Mora.

Also, Prof. Sandra Cypess (Chair of Spanish, SLLC) should be acknowledged for presenting  our candidates in her letter of support that was sent to the Snouffer Committee for selection.

Felicitaciones, Cristina!!  Please direct an email to Cristina at
cburneo@umd.edu to extend your congratulations.

Our colleague and friend, Mexican writer José Emilio Pacheco was awarded the Cervantes Prize, the highest literary honor in the Spanish-speaking world, on November 30, 2009. According to the jury, he is “an exceptional poet of daily life”, with the “ability to create his own world” and with “an ironic distance from reality” in his texts. Kudos/Congratulations José Emilio

The Miguel de Cervantes Prize, also known as Cervantes Prize, is a literary prize in Spanish awarded annually by the Ministry of Culture of Spain from the candidates proposed by the Language Academies of the Spanish-speaking countries. Established in 1976, this prize is the most important recognition in Spanish language to celebrate the overall body of work of an outstanding writer whose oeuvre is unique for the Spanish cultural heritage. Therefore, this prize is regarded as the Spanish language Nobel Prize in Literature.

The winner receives a monetary award of 125,000 euros (or $188,430 US dollars). The award is named after Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote, the best novel written in Spanish literature.

Members of the jury

The president of the jury is José Antonio Pascual, member of the Spanish Royal Academy. The other members of the jury are Jaime Labastida, representative from the Mexican Language Academy; Luis García Montero, from the Spanish Universities’ Presidents Conference; María Agueda Méndez, from the Association of Latin American Universities; Soleda Puértoles, from the Cervantes Institute; Almudena Grande, from the Ministry of Culture; Pedro García Cuartango, from the Spanish Associated Press Federation; Ana Villareal, from the Latin American Associated Press Federation; David Gíes, from the International Hispanic Association; and Juan Gelman, winner of the prize in 2007. Rogelio Blanco, general Director of the Book, Archives and Libraries Office, and Mónica Fernández, general assistant of the Book Promotion, Reading and the Spanish Language, are the board secretaries.

List of Cervantes Prize Winners

1976 Jorge Guillén

1977 Alejo Carpentier

1978 Dámaso Alonso

1979 Jorge Luis Borges

Gerardo Diego

1980 Juan Carlos Onetti

1981 Octavio Paz

1982 Luis Rosales

1983 Rafael Alberti

1984 Ernesto Sábato

1985 Gonzalo Torrente Ballester

1986 Antonio Buero Vallejo

1987 Carlos Fuentes

1988 Maria Zambrano

1989 Augusto Roa Bastos

1990 Adolfo Bioy Casares

1991 Francisco Ayala

1992 Dulce María Loynaz

1993 Miguel Delibes

1994 Mario Vargas Llosa

1995 Camilo José Cela

1996 José García Nieto

1997 Guillermo Cabrera Infante

1998 José Hierro

1999 Jorge Edwards

2000 Francisco Umbral

2001 Álvaro Mutis

2002 José Jiménez Lozano

2003 Gonzalo Rojas

2004 Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio

2005 Sergio Pitol

2006 Antonio Gamoneda

2007 Juan Gelman

2008 Juan Marsé

Premio Cervantes Prize To Emeritus Professor Jose Emilio Pacheco.

The Katherine Singer Kovacs Prize for an outstanding book in the field of Latin American and Spanish literatures and cultures now includes books published in Spanish or English. Under the terms of the Kovacs Prize, the selection committee is especially interested in original, broadly interpretive books that enhance understanding of the interrelations among literature, the other arts, and society and that offer fresh perspectives on the field. Books published in 2008 are eligible for this year’s Kovacs Prize; the deadline for entries is 1 May 2009. Authors of competing books must be current members of the MLA.

More details on this competition and other MLA awards are available at http://www.mla.org/resources/awards/awards_submissions.