Ashland University’s Foreign Languages Department welcomes Dr. Diana Cortès-Evans as a new Spanish professor.

Cortès-Evans recently joined the Ashland University Faculty as an assistant professor of Spanish. She received her master’s, and a Ph.D. of Philosophy in Spanish Language and Literature from SUNY at Buffalo, in May.

Cortès-Evans started teaching at AU in the spring as an online instructor while she was in Columbia. She officially joined the campus this fall as a full-time professor.

Before coming to AU, Cortès-Evans taught as an English teacher in Columbia, as a teacher’s assistant at SUNY-Buffalo, and online at Anna Maria College in Massachusetts. She taught courses such as elementary to advanced Spanish.

She will be teaching similar classes here like Spanish and Civilization of Spain.

Cortès-Evans has already made a great impression on her students such as junior Emma Heim.
“She’s a great teacher,” Heim said. “She’s super understanding and provides good resources as well to help us understand.”

Cortès-Evans has big plans for her area of expertise in the upcoming years. Her main goal is to have Spanish offered as a major again.

“I want to show students the benefits for their fields and develop that potential that I think AU has for integrating a second language into their fields of study,” Cortès-Evans said.

Dr. Richard Gray, assistant chair of the Department of Foreign Languages, thinks that Cortès-Evans’ outgoing personality and strong voice make her a great addition to the Department.

“We were looking for someone who had the right stuff, the energy, new ideas and that could collaborate with existing programs,” said Gray. “We wanted someone who was a forward-thinker and we saw that in Diana that type of person.”

What motivates Cortès-Evans is the ability to change one’s life by learning a new language. She believes that learning a language completely changes a person for the better.

“I’m excited to have Diana here. Ashland University needs Spanish,” Gray concluded.