DEPARTMENT OF SPANISH & PORTUGUESE

Elena Lanza (B.A. University of Salamanca, Spain, 1998; M.A. University of Illinois at Chicago, 2001) is Professor of Instruction in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, and Co-Director of the Weinberg Language Resource Center. She teaches Spanish language courses at all levels of proficiency at Weinberg College of Liberal Arts and Sciences as well as at the School of Professional Studies, and she is an AAPPL rater for Spanish.  

Her research and professional interests include open educational resources for language teaching and learning, curriculum development and assessment, program review, teacher professional development and content-based instruction within the flipped classroom approach. 

Elena has collaborated with the College Board and the Advanced Placement Spanish Language and Culture program in different capacities; she has served on the Committee on Contingent Labor in the Profession for the Modern Language Association (2012-2015); she has been an external reviewer for Spanish language programs at the college-level and she serves as a peer reviewer for the Foreign Language Annals. 

In 2023 Elena received the Weinberg College Community Builder Award and in 2022 she was the recipient of the Council on Language Instruction Award for Excellence in Foreign Language Teaching. She has been named to the Faculty Honor Roll by the Associated Student Government five times (most recently in 2021-2022). In 2010 she received the Distinguished Teaching Award for Undergraduate Studies at the School of Professional Studies.