Position:
Professor Emerita of Hispanic Studies, Founder of the Spanish Program
Email:
alesman@su.edu
Employed Since:
1991-2015
Educational History:
B.A. Double major, Spanish & French, Rollins College; M.Ed., French, Duke University; M.A. Spanish, University of Maryland; Ph.D. Spanish, University of Maryland; additional graduate work at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and The Johns Hopkins University
Fields of Expertise:
Languages: English, French, German, Spanish; some Italian, Portuguese, Russian and Chinese.
Research interests: Comparative Romance Linguistics, Foreign Language Pedagogy. Co-author of textbooks and educational software.
Professional Highlights:
Ann St. Clair Lesman holds a Bachelor’s degree with a double major in French and Spanish and a minor in German from Rollins College, a Master’s degree in French from Duke University and a Master’s degree and Ph.D. from the University of Maryland in Spanish. She also did additional graduate work at the Johns Hopkins University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and further graduate work in German and Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages at the University of Maryland.
She was given a Fulbright-Hays Grant for a project in Mexico gathering material for a textbook. She is co-author of several textbooks and author of many articles in the area of linguistics.
She has won outstanding teaching awards from Northern Virginia Community College, the Virginia Community College System, Shenandoah University and the award from the Foreign Language Association of Virginia for the outstanding foreign language professor in Virginia.
Personal Quote:It is important for us to leave the world a better place for our having been here and it is important for us to communicate across racial and ethnic lines if our country is to live up to its own ideals and to prosper. Students who have learned to speak Spanish are uniquely prepared to help bridge one of the several gaps that divide our country: the one separating English-speaking from Spanish-speaking Americans.
Personal Highlights:
She is active in her community, served as Chair of the Board of Barns of Rose Hill and is a tutor for Literacy Volunteers of the Winchester area.
She is also an artist who exhibits as “Ann St.Clair.”