(Posted September 4, 2001)

HUNTINGDON, Pa. -- Tammy Hertel, assistant professor of Spanish at Juniata College, will lecture on "An Intercultural E-mail Exchange: Student Attitudes and Perceptions" as part of Juniata's Bookend Seminar series at 4:30 p.m., Sept. 12 in 202 Good Hall on the Juniata campus.

The lecture is free and open to the public.

Hertel will talk about how students in her beginning Spanish class started an e-mail exchange with students taking English in Mexico City. During the talk, Hertel will detail how to start an e-mail exchange program and discuss her students' perceptions of Mexican culture as well as their reactions to the exchange.

Hertel joined Juniata in 1999 as an instructor of Spanish. She earned a bachelor's degree in Spanish and secondary education from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, and went on to earn a master's degree in Spanish literature and linguistics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She earned a doctorate in Spanish applied linguistics at Penn State University in 2000. She also has studied at El Centro Bilingüe y Multicultural in Cuernvaca, Mexico and El Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey in Monterrey, Mexico.

Hertel has taught a variety of Spanish language courses at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Virginia Military Institute, and The Pennsylvania State University. While at Penn State she also worked as a Spanish course supervisor and served as assistant director and instructor in the university's study abroad program in Puebla, Mexico.

She has also co-authored the Spanish for Life Worktext and published articles in Spanish Applied Linguistics, Texas Papers in Foreign Language Education, and Proceedings of the Boston University Conference of Language Development. She is a member of the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese, the American Council of Teachers of Foreign Languages, and the Modern Language Association.

Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.