Breaks Away: Sylvia Kallemeyn

The New Song Movement, born out of struggle, political repression and sometimes civil wars in Central and South America, was the break-away focus of Professor Sylvia Kallemeyn, associate professor of Spanish, during her sabbatical leave from Hope in 2014-15. Through the study of the folk-inspired and socially-committed music of this era first in Ecuador and then back in the States, Kallemeyn’s goal was to make these songs more accessible to students in her Spanish language classes.

Breaks Away: Renata Fernandez

Dr. Renata Fernandez’s return to her native country for sabbatical last spring had more to do with churchgoing than homecoming. For it was on the walls of numerous Catholic churches and former convents and monasteries in Mexico that Dr. Fernandez focused much of her research into the “camouflaged culture of resistance” rendered by indigenous artisans in the mid-1500s.