Department of Spanish and Portuguese
Ranked Number One in the Country

The   Chronicle of Higher Education   reported in the January 12, 2007 issue  that the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Vanderbilt University was ranked number one as the most productive graduate program in both Spanish and Portuguese studies in the country by The Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index, partly financed by the State University of New York at Stony Brook and produced by Academic Analytics. The Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index rates faculty members' scholarly output at nearly 7,300 doctoral programs around the country. It examines the number of books and journal articles published by each program's faculty, as well as awards, honors, journal citations, and grants received by them. During the last three years the department of Spanish and Portuguese has completely restructured the graduate program making it highly competitive, research oriented, and one of the most dynamic in the country. The Department has an impressive list of books published by its faculty (six in 2005-'2006' by Philip D. Rasico, Edward Friedman, Benigno Trigo, Earl Fitz, and William Luis), as well as many distinctions and awards such as Sigma Delta Pi's Order of Don Quijote 2005 (Edward F. Friedman), Appointment to the Reial Acadèmia de Bones Lletres de Barcelona 2004, (Philip D. Rasico), National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship 2004 (Cathy Jrade), and National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar directorship 2003 (Edward H. Friedman). In addition, the Department is home of three leading professional journals: Bulletin of the Comediantes edited by professor Edward Friedman, the  Afro-Hispanic Review edited by professor William Luis and the Vanderbilt e-Journal of Luso-Hispanic Studies edited by Christina Karageorgou.