SWOSU's Dr. Tugba Sevin Named 2024 DaVinci Fellow for Language Initiative

April 17, 2024

SWOSU Press Release

Southwestern Oklahoma State University (SWOSU) is proud to announce that Dr. Tugba Sevin, Associate Professor in the SWOSU College of Arts and Sciences has recently been named the 2024 DaVinci Fellow by the DaVinci Institute. The DaVinci Fellowship Award recognizes higher education faculty whose creative projects reflect a higher degree of innovation and creativity. The DaVinci Award Ceremony was held on March 29 at the Oklahoma History Center in Oklahoma City, where Sevin was presented with a DaVinci Vitruvian Man medallion and a cash award of $1,000 to help support her project.

The DaVinci Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to nurturing arts, sciences, humanities, and education in Oklahoma, strives to promote a statewide renaissance in creativity through lectures, workshops, professional development, research, and advocacy.

Sevin’s collaborative research and professional development project, “Expanding Horizons: World Languages Certificate Initiative,” demonstrates her commitment to addressing the language education gap prevalent in Oklahoma. Currently, high school students in the state are not required to take foreign languages to graduate. Instead, they can opt for two years of computer science/computer technology. With many Oklahoma high schools lacking foreign language programs, many students reach university with limited foreign language exposure or none at all. Moreover, as language courses are not a requirement for most university majors, students may graduate college or enter the workforce without ever taking a foreign language course. Sevin’s initiative is to address this language deficiency predicament by introducing a World Language Certificate Program at SWOSU, designed to demonstrate students’ proficiency in two or more foreign languages.

Sevin, recently promoted to Professor, began her career at SWOSU in 2014 and currently teaches Italian and Spanish courses in the Department of Language and Literature. She also serves as World Languages Coordinator and faculty sponsor of the World Languages and Cultures Association, as well as in the SWOSU chapters of the Alpha Mu Gamma National Foreign Languages Honor Society and Gamma Kappa Alpha Italian Honor Society.

For more information about the DaVinci Institution, visit www.davinciok.org. To learn more about the World Languages minor at SWOSU, visit https://www.swosu.edu/undergraduate/language-literature/world-languages.php.