Dr. Scott Schwenter, Professor of Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, has been appointed as the director of the Center for Latin American Studies, starting September 1.

With over 20 years of experience in academia, Dr. Schwenter will provide the overall vision and leadership of CLAS programing and outreach efforts, develop linkages with partner institutions, oversee Center grant activity, and create positive synergy among the various Latin American Studies scholars, students, other units on campus and in the community. He has a wide range of administrative experience in his home department, significant involvement and familiarity with Latin America and extensive prior participation with a number of CLAS projects.

Dr. Schwenter has significant professional experience and connections in Latin America, having taught courses or given invited lectures in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Panama, and Puerto Rico. He is a fully fluent speaker, reader, and writer of both Spanish and Portuguese, and has published research in refereed publications in both languages. Dr. Schwenter is a variationist sociolinguist and pragmaticist, who is primarily interested in the contextual conditioning of linguistic variables, and why speakers choose to express things in a given way when they are faced with multiple options for conveying the same content. He is currently writing a comparative grammar of Spanish and Portuguese, to be published by Routledge.

Please join us in welcoming Dr. Scott Schwenter in his new role as CLAS Director!