We would like to highlight two special funds available to help students of the Spanish and Portuguese Studies Division accomplish study-abroad and career-development goals.
David William Foster Fund
The David William Foster Fund has supported advanced language training for one graduate student each year since 2005. Normally it has been used for training in Spanish in Oaxaca, but in 2011 it was granted to a department graduate student from Spain to work on her English in Seattle.
Emily Thompson, graduate student and teaching assistant (featured in the Student Spotlight article in this newsletter), utilized funds in the summer following her first year in the MA program to travel to Oaxaca where she studied Spanish language and culture.
David William Foster, Ph.D., one of the department’s most distinguished alumni, graduated from UW in 1964. He then became a professor at Arizona State University and established this fund in 2005.
Gary Schmechel Fund
Gary Schmechel entered the division's graduate program in fall 2004 to resume his studies of Spanish and Latin American literature after a long hiatus. He was a gifted reader and translator of poetry in Spanish. Upon his untimely death, his family and others donated funds to be used to support a graduate student working on poetry translation.
In October 2012, Emily Thompson, a graduate student in the MA program in Hispanic Studies, was given an award from the funds to attend the American Translators Association Conference in San Diego.
To learn more about these funds and to find out if you qualify, contact Department Chair, Anthony Geist: tgeist@uw.edu.