"I began my career at SFU in the DML as a second year student in 1965.

I completed most courses in General Lingustics, all the courses in French and Spanish Linguistics and most courses in French and Spanish Literature.

I completed all the above in December 1968 for my B.A. (Hon) in French and minor in Spanish., awarded in the Spring Convocation of 1969. At this time I was also awarded the French Government bronze medal by the late Mme Bird of whom I have fond memories.

In 1966 I founded, and became the first president of the Alliance Francaise, section universitaire.

From January 1969 to August 1970, I was offered a TAship in the French Dept. while I studied for my M.A. in Romance Linguistics under the guidance of the late Dr. T. W. Kim. and Dr. E. Colhoun; Dr. Marguerite Fauquenoy (Saint Jacques) was my inspiration and guide in the French Linguistics section of this program. I wrote my thesis on the phonology of my Calabrian (Southern Italian) dialect of Scandale.

From September 1975 to June 2005 I was a teacher of French and  Spanish at the senior level in the Delta School District, and for several years a member of examination committees for these two languages at the provincial level.

In 2005 I retired from teaching and am devoting my time to the completion of the dictionary of my dialect.

From time to time I still come to the Bennett Library to do linguistic research."

"Je suis une ancienne étudiante du DLL (French division). J’ai terminé mes études à SFU en 1981 avec un « BA. Hons. in French ». J’ai de très beaux souvenirs de mes années là-bas ; mes professeurs de français étaient Jacqueline Viswanathan, Grazia Merler et Phyllis Wrenn entre autres. Après mes études à SFU, j’ai poursuivi des études supérieures à l’Université de Toronto : M.A. en 1982 ; Ph.D en 1991. Je suis professeure agrégée à l’Université Ryerson à Toronto où j’enseigne la littérature et la culture franco-canadiennes ainsi que la langue française depuis 1992. J’ai eu le bonheur de collaborer avec mes anciennes professeures ainsi qu’avec Guy Poirier dans une série d’études sur le fait francophone en Colombie britannique.  J’y ai contribué des articles sur Thuong Vuong-Riddick, Monique Genuist et sur la nouvelle francophone en milieu minoritaire. J’ai beaucoup aimé mes années à SFU !"

"Since completing my extended minor in French with a major in Anthropology at SFU I have gone on to complete an MPhil in International Community Health at the University of Oslo. I am now half way through my PhD on a project called Communicate to Vaccinate (www.commvac.com) based at the Norwegian Knowledge Centre for the Health Services. My French language skills played an important role in my acceptance to both the masters and PhD programs and helped me stand out from other students applying from North America. However, it was not until starting my PhD in February 2013 that the importance of my French degree from SFU was fully realised. The project I am currently working on is a multi country study with the majority of work taking place in sub-saharan Africa. The project had already selected field site in Mozambique (Portuguese) and Nigeria (English) and was looking for a researcher that could work in a complimentary country. It was decided that a french speaking country would be best and so I was selected to go to Cameroon. I spent 4 and a half months in Cameroon in the spring of this year working with the vaccination program to map their communication strategies, observe the ongoing campaigns against polio, and interview stakeholders about their perceptions of the communication strategies being used to communicate about vaccination. Without my French language skills this work would not have been possible and I may not have been selected for my PhD position."