Education
Ph.D. in Hispanic Languages and Literatures
University of California, Los Angeles 1990
Dissertation: “An Anatomy of Madrid in Luis Martín-Santos’s Tiempo de silencio”
Summer Term, Salamanca, Spain
University of Massachusetts 1983
M.A. in Spanish
University of Iowa 1983
B.A. in Spanish (minors: Journalism and Education)
University of Iowa 1980
Semester Abroad, Council on International Educational Exchange
University of Seville, Seville, Spain 1979
Positions
Sheri Spaine Long is Editor of Hispania – A journal devoted to the teaching of Spanish and Portuguese, the scholarly journal of the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese. She is currently Executive Director of the Alabama World Languages Association. Formerly a faculty member, department chair, and study abroad program director, Long rose to the rank of (Full) Professor of Spanish at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. During her tenure at UAB, she was invited and subsequently appointed as Distinguished Visiting Professor of Spanish at the United States Air Force Academy. Most recently Long served as Professor and Chair of the Department of Languages and Culture Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Teaching
Sheri Spaine Long specializes in language teaching and learning. Her fields of interest are broad and include Spanish language and culture, global literature, language pedagogy, and international education. She has taught Spanish language, literature, and culture courses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. As a humanities scholar-teacher, she bridges the gap between the traditional curricula (languages and literatures) and languages for specific purposes. Long has developed courses that feature emerging pedagogies such as the integration of leadership studies and the 21st Century Skills into language learning. At the United States Air Force Academy, she created the seminar titled War in the Arts in Spain and Latin America. Long has also taught honors and interdisciplinary courses such as Foreign Literatures in Translation and Madrid: City-as-Text Seminar onsite for the National Collegiate Honors Council ’s Semester Abroad at the Universidad de Alcalá, Alcalá de Henares , Spain. She has directed study abroad programs to both Spain and Latin America.
She is an awarding-winning educator and has received several teaching and service awards from universities and professional organizations. In 2009, Long was honored with the prestigious Steiner Award for Leadership in Foreign Language Education from the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. For more information, see Honors.
Scholarship
Sheri Spaine Long writes on a wide range of topics in Spanish language and literature, leadership development and language learning, as well as language pedagogy. Long’s publications include co-authored college textbooks and numerous articles, book chapters, essays, notes, and reviews.
She has developed instructional materials for Standards-based Spanish instruction that promote intercultural literacy at the introductory and intermediate levels. Recently she has co-authored textbooks that are simultaneously book-based and platform-based with Cengage Learning. Among these titles is Nexos. Introductory Spanish that has been released in its 4th edition and is widely adopted at colleges and universities in the United States. Long’s other titles with Cengage include Cuadros, Alianzas, and Pueblos.
Long’s special interest in Madrid as a literary invention in contemporary Spanish prose allows her to combine traditional literary approaches to fictional space as well as anthropological approaches to the study of place. Her inquiry is rooted in the material where landscape becomes memory and identity. She has published Madrid-related scholarship in Letras Peninsulares, Hispania, Cuaderno internacional de estudios humanísticos y literatura (número monográfico sobre la novela española desde 1975), World Literature in Spanish: An Encyclopedia, and a translation in The Grove.
At the United States Air Force Academy, Long began her research focused on the integration of language learning and leadership studies. Collaborating with the USAFA Center for the Scholarship on Teaching and Learning, she had the leading role in two sponsored-research projects on leadership and languages. Project outcomes, as well as subsequent studies and papers, appear in Dimension, Cuadernos de ALDEEU, The Scholarship and Teaching on Languages for Specific Purposes, and The Language Educator.
Since Long’s initial leadership appointments to chairperson and editor, she has published articles on curricular trends, the humanities, and scholarly publication. They have appeared in Association of Departments of Foreign Languages Bulletin. A subsidiary of the Modern Language Association, The Journal of Scholarly Publishing, and the NECTFL Review. For a list of works, see Publications.
Service
Sheri Spaine Long is currently serving on the seventeen-member Board of Directors of the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese. Long was elected to and served on the fifteen-member Board of Directors of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages and on the Board of Directors of the Southern Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. In 2007, The College Board named her to the six-person panel as a World Languages Best Practices Commission Member for Spanish Literature. In 2015, she was elected to the Executive Committee on The Teaching of Languages (renamed Forum) of the Modern Language Association. She is a founding member of the International Symposium on Languages for Specific Purposes and participates on its External Advisory Committee. From 2006-2009, she served as Editor-in-Chief of Foreign Language Annals, the research journal of American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. In 2010, she began serving as the Editor of Hispania. For more information, see Editorial Experience.
Long consults on related issues for colleges and universities, The College Board, American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese, Cultural Experiences Abroad, Rosetta Stone, publishers in language education, and public and independent K-12 schools. She is active in the community and civic organizations. For more information, see Community Engagement.