Celebrating Excellence: Spanish M.A. Graduates Lead in Community Engagement, Mentorship, and Teaching
Graduate students in the Spanish program, under the advisement of Dr. Svetlana Tyutina, completed over 300 hours of volunteer work for the CSUN VITA clinic, the Volunteer income tax assistance clinic helping low-income families in the San Fernando Valley and beyond. Students served as Spanish/English interpreters at VITA sites and its hub at CSUN.
The Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures is proud to announce that 11 students have successfully completed the Master of Arts in Spanish program at California State University, Northridge during the 2024–2025 academic year. 8 of them graduated with Honors. We commend their dedication to academic excellence, cultural engagement, and linguistic mastery. Their achievements reflect the strength of our program and the commitment of our advanced language skills, and professional development.
Congratulations to all our graduates on this important milestone. We look forward to seeing the impact they will make in education, translation and interpreting, community service, and beyond!
We recognize Silvia Gonzalez and Telvis Marquez for their outstanding work as Teaching Associates. Through their dedication to instruction and mentorship in lower-division Spanish courses, they have inspired undergraduate students while gaining invaluable professional experience.
Isabel Castro and Ariadna Sanchez served as Peer Mentors as part of a university-wide pilot initiative aimed at strengthening graduate student support networks. The Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures was one of only three departments selected to participate in this pilot. The peer mentoring model developed in the M.A. in Spanish program under the guidance of Dr. Svetlana Tyutina was among the examples considered in the design of the broader CSUN initiative. Isabel and Ariadna’s contributions played a key role in fostering community, connection, and academic success among their peers. This pilot will serve as a foundation for broader implementation across the university in the coming year.
Yolanda Rodriguez served as a Research Assistant to Dr. Svetlana Tyutina, contributing to faculty-led projects with dedication and professionalism. Her work demonstrated strong analytical skills and a deep commitment to academic inquiry, reflecting the intellectual rigor and curiosity the program seeks to cultivate in all its students.
As part of a pilot initiative developed through Dr. Svetlana Tyutina’s SPAN 472 course, students served as volunteer Spanish/English tutors at the Barbara Ann Ward Language Center. Through this hands-on experience, they provided linguistic support and conversational practice to their peers, helping to foster a more inclusive and multilingual campus environment. This initiative marks the beginning of a broader effort to expand peer tutoring opportunities to additional languages in the coming academic year. The initiative, led by Dr. Svetlana Tyutina, received funding from the Office of Community Engagement to support an expanded version of the project in the upcoming academic year.
Congratulations to Maria Prezzavento, who presented her work at the Annual Service-Learning Symposium. Her project reflects a deep commitment to community-based learning and the application of language skills in real-world contexts.