Spanish instructor recognized for community language project

Cassandra Gulam, senior instructor of Spanish language and culture at WSU Vancouver, received the 2018 Excellence in Community-Based Learning award from the Community Engagement Institute at Gonzaga University for her project entitled, “Language Learners in the Community: Partnering with Safety-Net Medical Clinics in Clark County.”

The review board specifically applauded Gulam’s attention to including her partners in the identification of project goals. In the words of one reviewer, the project offered “well-demonstrated community need, application of skills to problem-solving, clarity of measurable outcomes, replicability and a strong intercultural competency component. I love this project and the way it addresses one of the biggest challenges (and virtues) in American health communication: our diversity!”

Overall, Gulam’s work models the kind of reciprocity that reviewers desired to see practiced between folks in higher education and the community.

Gulam, who is also the program leader for the Department of Foreign Languages and Culture at the Vancouver campus, is a member of the WSU Teaching Academy and a Community Engagement Faculty Fellow.

Top image: At the award presentation were (l-r) Ross Brooke Watts, Whitworth University; Cassandra Gulam, WSU Vancouver; Melanie Brown, WSU Pullman; and Patricia Chantrill, Eastern Washington University. 

Originally posted at WSU Insider

Contact:
Melanie Brown, director, Center for Civic Engagement, 509-335-5401, melanieb@wsu.edu