LSP Announcement & Congratulations
We are proud to announce that our UNC Latina/o Studies Program coordinator, listserv manager, and team leader, Dr. Geovani Ramírez, will be joining Virginia Tech University’s department of English as an assistant professor in Latinx Studies and Literature, where he will conduct research on and teach courses in Latinx literature, ecocriticism, and literature and medicine.
Dr. Ramírez (2022 argonaut) and Dr. DeGuzmán (2021 argonaut) at induction ceremony for UNC’s Order of the Golden Fleece
Geovani Ramírez has been the UNC Latina/o Studies Program coordinator and staff leader since the spring of 2019 and has worked at UNC in various other capacities, including as a writing coordinator for the Moore Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program (MURAP), a graduate fellow for the Center for Faculty Excellence, a writing coach for UNC’s Writing Center, and an instructor for the Summer Bridge Program. This spring of 2022, Dr. Ramírez was inducted into the Order of the Golden Fleece, UNC’s oldest and most prestigious honors society.
This upcoming summer of 2022, Dr. Ramírez will return to MURAP as a faculty mentor, and he will be offering his final course at UNC, ENGL 164 Introduction to Latina/o Studies, in summer session I. If you are a UNC student looking for an enriching and fun summer experience, we hope you will consider joining him for ENGL 164!
Please join us in congratulating Dr. Ramírez on his newest adventure!
If you would like to stay in touch him, you may connect via LinkedIn or Twitter @Dr_G_Ramirez.
A Note from Dr. Ramírez
“I want to take a moment to thank Dr. María DeGuzmán for her friendship and mentorship over the last decade. She and my work with the Latina/o Studies Program have greatly shaped my life’s trajectory.
When I arrived at UNC as a graduate student in the department of English and Comparative Literature, I did so with a deep love of and appreciation for literature, but while I had taken multiethnic courses prior to joining UNC, I had primarily been exposed to and educated in canonical American and British literature. Dr. María DeGuzmán helped me expand my understanding of American literature and its relationship to historical processes. She also modeled for me transdisciplinary research and helped me envision ways by which I might use my training in literary criticism to also produce scholarship that has social impacts. Her courses in Latinx studies helped me additionally begin my journey toward finding my own latinidad (a constantly evolving process) and, with that, developing a greater and more nuanced understanding of my culture, its histories, and myself.
Under Dr. DeGuzmán’s guidance, I, along with other graduate scholars who have come before and are here now, have learned what it takes to run a premier program. From writing calls for papers to running a campus listserv and planning and advertising symposia, speaker visits, and film screenings, my time at the LSP has taught me invaluable skills that I will take with me.
Moreover, my time with the LSP offered me a family among my LSP team members and those many other wonderful people from and outside of UNC—speakers, faculty, graduate scholars, undergraduate colleagues, and staff— who have supported and joined our program over the years. I have been privileged to learn from and work with so many amazing people during my work the with LSP, and I will always remember fondly our shared experiences. Special thanks to Dr. DeGuzmán, Dr. Ariana Vigil, Dr. Rosa Perelmuter, Dr. Tanya Shields, Dr. Ruth Salvaggio, Marcy Pedzwater, and Krysten Voelkner, emilio Taiveaho, and Meleena Gil.”
-Geovani Ramírez
