This past Thursday and Friday (May 11 & 12) the lecturers of the Spanish Language Program gathered in Long Branch New Jersey where they discussed important topics like syllabi, materials and lesson plans, assessment, and more. Their time together was very productive.

Professor Paloma Moscardó-Vallés comments, "We appreciate the opportunity of working as a group: it gave us a unique perspective and the exchange of ideas was fabulous. We came back home with lots of renewed energy and many topics to reflect on. We are proud of our progress over the years, but it is

important that we keep adapting to new methodological and technological updates and further improving the program. On a personal level, it was a unique and happy occasion to connect with our colleagues as a group and to, at least, put our feet in the ocean briefly."

Department Chair, Pedro Meira Monteiro offers his words of encouragement to the group as well as to others considering retreats:

"Retreats can, indeed, be precious moments for collective reflection. There are entire zones of work that can become invisible to those who work daily in a program, and such moments of pause and reflection are incredibly rich exactly because they remind us that we are together, and that good ideas moving forward are also part of a collective movement.

Good old Marx had some great insights about this when he wrote about alienation. Coming and thinking together is the most effective way to bring to light the importance of what we do individually, and how it resonates collectively."