Associate Professor of German Erika Berroth served as an Evaluator for the National German Exam, administered through the American Association of Teachers of German. The National German Exam is administered each year to over 15,000 high school students of German. The exam, now in its 64th year, provides individual diagnostic feedback, rewards students through an extensive regional and national prize program, and creates a sense of accomplishment. Exam results provide teachers a means of comparing students in all regions of the country, as well as programmatic data to help inform curricular decisions. For over 60 years, the Federal Republic of Germany, through the German Foreign Office and its Pedagogical Exchange Service, has provided the AATG/PAD National German Exam Scholarship, a three-week trip to Germany. Berroth’s outreach and support for teachers and learners of German facilitates transitions from high school to college level German curricula and the enjoyment of lifelong learning.

—March 2024

Associate Professor of German Erika Berroth hosted a campus exploration day for 15 students from Germany and their teachers on February 29. The students from Paul-Klee-Gymnasium in Augsburg participate in the German American Partnership Program, GAPP, with Westwood High School in Round Rock. Established in 1972, the German American Partnership Program facilitates bilateral transatlantic exchanges between schools in the U.S. and Germany. With a substantial network of participating schools and over 400,000 participants over the years, GAPP is the largest bilateral exchange program between the U.S. and another country. Berroth’s sustained engagement in this form of community outreach connects and supports German educators across institutions and increases guidance for students of languages, who are encouraged to integrate experiences abroad into their educational paths. Southwestern students and GAPP participants enjoyed opportunities for increasing their intercultural knowledge and competence.

—March 2024

Associate Professor of German Erika Berroth accepted an invitation to serve on the 2024-2025 Fulbright U.S. Student Program National Screening Committee. Berroth looks forward to contributing her experience and expertise to the Fulbright U.S. Student Program Team, Institute of International Education.

—June 2023

Associate Professor of German Erika Berroth, together with Liesl Alingham, Associate Professor of German, Sewanee, Anne Stone, Associate Professor of Communications, Rollins, and Melissa Nelson, Director of Social Impact Hub, Rollins, earned an ACS Award to offer a faculty development workshop at Sewanee from Tuesday, May 23, 2023,– Thursday, May 25, 2023. The workshop is titled Sustainability Mindset: Making Change Makers. Check the ACS site and register here.

—April 2023

Associate Professor of German Erika Berroth presented an invited lecture and an invited workshop at Belmont University in Nashville, TN, on April 2 and 3, 2023. The lecture titled Connecting through Literature: Reading GDR Women Writers in 2023 contributes to Belmont’s general education initiative, Well-being for Life-long Learning (WELL Core), as an intercultural learning WELL Core. The workshop for language educators is titled Hospitality, Inclusion, and Intercultural Learning: Increasing Empathy by Engaging Food Ways Across Cultures. It contributes to Belmont’s ongoing community engagement series, Conversations @ Belmont, that allows for communication and collaboration among educators at colleges, middle, and high schools for the purpose of preparing students to transition to college

—April 2023

Associate Professor of German Erika Berroth served as a judge at the Texas State German Contest. On February 25, 2023, Texas State University in San Marcos hosted the Texas State German Contest on its 41st anniversary. This scholastic competition for high school students brought together over 1,000 high school students and their teachers from all over Texas. Engagement with this event marks an important aspect of Berroth’s commitment to community building and outreach. It was a wonderful opportunity to encourage young learners to continue their studies of languages, literature, and cultures.

—February 2023

Associate Professor of German Erika Berroth is co-editor of the recently published volume: “Behinderungen und Herausforderungen. Disability Studies in der Germanistik.” (Sektion) Wege der Germanistik in transkultureller Perspektive. Akten des IX. Kongresses der Internationalen Vereinigung für Germanistik (IVG). (Jahrbuch für Internationale Germanistik. Beihefte 5). Bd. 5 . Frankfurt a. M.: Peter Lang, 2022, 463-605. Included in this volume is Berroth’s research article on representations of Deaf Cultures in German film: “Repräsentationen von Gehörlosigkeit im Film – Jenseits der Stille im Kontext der ‘Deaf Futures.’” 489-506.

—February 2023

Associate Professor of German Erika Berroth earned a materials grant from the German Foreign Office and the German Academic Exchange Service, Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD). The grant covers a curated collection of German language titles for children and young adults, including picture books, graphic novels, non-fiction, and fiction. Students will use the collection to study media, narration, as well as representations of diversity, inclusion, and anti-racism in German literature for young audiences. Success with DAAD materials grants is made possible through Berroth’s work in community engagement as a DAAD Ortslektorin.

—November 2022

Associate Professor of German Erika Berroth was the plenary keynote speaker at the 54th annual conference of the Tennessee World Language Teaching Association, “The Future of Languages is You: Learn and Share” in Franklin, Tennessee, on November 4–5, 2022. Berroth’s keynote address titled “Honoring Multilingualism and Linguistic Diversity as Ways of Belonging” introduced important questions related to language justice. Increased awareness about language justice contributes to creating inclusive multilingual spaces and includes challenging structures of power and privilege associated with languages, accents, or dialects. Berroth highlighted the benefits of empathy gained through learning multiple languages and through inhabiting multilingual spaces. The invited plenary keynote engaged a diverse audience. The conference convened educators from the Tennessee Classical Association, the Tennessee Association of Chinese Teachers, and the American Association of Teachers of French, German, Spanish, and Portuguese.

—November 2022

Associate Professor of German Erika Berroth was invited to contribute to a podcast series sponsored by Literaturhaus Heilbronn, Germany, which was published on October 14, 2022. The podcast series is titled “Warum Kleist?” (Why Kleist?) and features responses from international Kleist scholars. Contemporary German language authors compete for the annual award of the Kleist-Preis in honor of one of Germany’s most remarkable language artists, Heinrich von Kleist (1777-1811). Berroth’s research includes a book on Kleist and work on several Kleist-Preis awardees. The podcast episode can be accessed here.

—October 2022
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