Ronnie’s

NATASHA CHIPANGURA REPORTER J eff Stambaugh, associate professor of management, believes that there are two sides to the coin of taking on a new responsibility. Stambaugh is the interim dean for the Dillard College of Business Administration as of fall 2017, following former dean Terry Patton’s retirement.

“Anybody who follows Terry Patton better feel very, very nervous because he is going to leave enormously large shoes to fill,” Stambaugh said. “Dr. Patton has done a fantastic job as dean; he has the college going in a great direction. The good news is everything is going in the right direction, the bad news is you [the new Dean] are going to get compared to him, and that’s not a very comfortable place to be.”

Stambaugh shed light on how he emerged as the successful candidate for this position.

“When Dr. Patton gave the unfortunate news that he wanted to step down from being the dean and just retire to being a faculty member the provost —then Dr. Stewart — formed a dean search committee, and we posted an advertisement in various national publications in the fall and had over 58 applications for the position.”

In addition to carrying out the president’s strategic plan for the university, Stambaugh plans to carry on with the non-stop mission of continuously improving the education and continuously increasing the impact of the college of business.

“Everyone across the university is going to be implementing the president’s strategic plan with a new provost inbound, and we’ll see whether the provost has some specific directions,” Stambaugh said. “Here in the Dillard college, part of it being Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business accredited is a never-ending cycle of innovation and improvement and so just like we have not been standing still for the past five years, we will not be standing still for the next five years. We will be continuously accessing our student’s learning, finding out how we can improve student learning, launching innovations, measuring students learning, finding out whether student learning is improving and, as always, continuing to increase the impact of the business college.”

Stambaugh said that it is a privilege to be associated with MSU and to serve the Dillard college.

“It’s not about me, it’s about our students, their success and working with a great group of faculty, which is what we have in the Dillard college,” Stambaugh said.

German Prof: ‘Learning a foreign language can make you smarter’

HERBERT MCCULLOUGH REPORTER T he Foreign Language Department hosted the Trilingual Café at Clark Student Center atrium on April 10 at 2 pm.

“The Trilingual Café is our effort to bring the study and the appreciation of foreign languages and cultures to the student body,” Sarah Butler, associate professor of Spanish, said. “And really just expose them to some taste around the world and to have them use a foreign language in a fun and relaxed atmosphere.”

Butler explained the benefits of studying a foreign language. She said learning a different language is a good brain exercise and it expands makes a student think outside of what their brain is accustomed to doing.

“It is important to recognize and learn about other cultures and learn a different way of looking at the world,” Butler said.

She talked about how influential Spanish is to American culture. The Spanish-speaking community in the United States dates back to the rise and fall of the Spanish Empire, the aftermath of the Mexican-American War, and immigration.

“Spanish is very influential if you look at the name of some of the cities in the American Southwest,” Butler said.”The Spanish colonized parts of the United States in their efforts to expand Catholicism and their wealth. Spanish culture has been a part of the United States before the birth of the United States. We have a lot of immigrants from Spanish speaking countries and we have a lot of people who lived here for a generation who are Spanish speakers.”

Yvonne Frank, associate professor of German, also explained how important learning a foreign language is. Those who learn a foreign language have a higher salary. “Learning German is very important,” Frank said. “It can help push your career further because not that many people outside of Europe know German but it’s a very important language in the industries of science, green technology, history, and automobile manufacturing. According to the Texas German Heritage Society, learning German also increases your paycheck. German seems to be the language that shows the most benefits in the revenue.”

The students wrote their favorite phrases in Spanish, French, German and any other language on the board.

“My favorite French word is parapluie which means umbrella,” Frank said. “It sounds like a very happy and poetic word. My favorite German word is Augenblick which means the blink of an eye. Many German words are compound, vivid, and literal. My favorite phrase in Spanish is bien fin de semana which is when you wish someone a good weekend. It is a very happy and vibrant phrase.”

“I wrote three different words,” Margaret Greenhalgh, English junior, said. “I wrote Nien, which is German for no. Ja which means yes. And halo which means hi. These are not the only German words I know.”

Students also had kaffee, sandwaffeln, polvorones, flan, and pain au chocolat.

“There are many different tasty treats from our different cultures,” Frank said. “The most common question from students is ‘did you make this?’ The answer to that is yes, it is homemade and authentic food.”

This was the most popular part of the event.

“The food was really good,” Greenhalgh said. “There were so many different tastes.”

Butler explained how one can be able to learn Spanish. It is hard and it takes a lot of time to memorize new vocabulary and it takes a lot of practice.

The expectations of the Trilingual Café from the foreign language department are for the students to enjoy themselves. There are also hopes to recruit potential students to take a foreign language at MSU.

“We also want students to be exposed to the cultures of the Spanish, French, and German speaking worlds,” Frank said. “In our language courses, we also teach cultures of many different Spanish, French, and Germanspeaking countries.”

“The most important for learning Spanish is or any foreign language or any topic is having a willingness to fail,” Butler said. “And a willingness to step outside one’s comfort zone and try something different.”

Butler explained how learning a new language requires a lot of time, practice, and effort. In order to master a foreign language, a student must get the basics down.

“Learning a foreign language is like learning to play an instrument or a sport,” Butler said. “You have to be bold and you have to speak to people, write, read, listen, and emerge yourself.”

Many students who attended the Trilingual Café have already registered for language and cultural classes. The most popular cultural class includes Intermediate German.

“I am already registered for intermediate German next semester,” Lexi Murphy, English sophomore, said. “I wish to learn all languages. My next project language will be Spanish.”