Associate Professor, Spanish and Portuguese | Member of the Graduate Faculty
Dr. Eliud Chuffe is Associate Professor for the Department of Spanish and Portuguese where he also served as Director of Basic Languages for over 18 years. His areas of specialization are Spanish Golden Age Literature and Teaching of Spanish Methodology. He has many years of teaching experience having taught in Guadalajara, Mexico, and Segovia Alcalá de Henares, Spain, as Resident Director of Study Abroad Programs. He received his MA and his Ph.D. from the University of Arizona. Professor Chuffe has co-authored and edited three books on Spanish language and teaching. His philosophy of teaching comes from years of personal experiences as an undergraduate student, a tutor, a graduate student, a father, a teacher, a mentor and, finally, as a professor and scholar. Since his early years, he has always been interested in teaching others and in developing ways to improve his own teaching techniques. This has guided him to reconsider the methods used by his own teachers, supervising over 80 graduate teaching assistants and adjunct instructors per semester and with the largestt Foreign Language program in the nation with almost 5700 students in the Spanish Basic Language program per year His beliefs regarding the teaching of foreign languages are in constant evolution as he continues to develomore experience as an instructor and with the ever-changing world of technology that helps him teach more effectively to new generations of students. “I walk into my first day of teaching with a strong believe that any student in my classes has the potential to succeed in higher education. I am constantly modifying my teaching methods in a search for the optimal goal “to become a more effective teacher in the field of Hispanic language and cultures”.