Mississippi Valley State University News September 27, 2013 Valley's Exceptional: Professor Dr. Aurora Fiengo-Varn Dr. Aurora Fiengo-Varn, an associate professor of Spanish in the Department of English and Foreign Languages at Mississippi Valley State University, is just one of many faculty members at MVSU that takes pride in learning all she can to make sure Valley students receive the education they deserve. In June, Dr. Varn attended the 2013 International Association for Language Learning Technology Conference in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. According to Varn, the conference was well attended with educators from all over the world including: France, Germany, Sweden, Chile, Mexico, Canada, China, and Trinidad and Tobago. Varn also attended the 95th Annual Conference for the American Association of Teachers in Spanish and Portuguese (AATSP) in San Antonio, Texas in July. The theme was "Building Bridges to the Future: Innovation, Technology, Advocacy. Participants left with ideas on how to use technical tools such as: blogs, voice threads, web two applications, mobile devices and more. She also visited Northeast Mississippi Community College in Booneville, Miss. as the guest speaker at a "Best Practice in World Language" workshop. While there, Varn was able to facilitate faculty development opportunities to teachers from all over the state of Mississippi. More recently, Varn presented at the Mississippi Foreign Language Association Regional Workshop hosted by William Carey University in Hattiesburg, Miss. She presented on "Demonstrating Performance with Digital Projects". "This has been a very busy, yet rewarding past few months for me and I'm not done yet," said Dr. Varn. Varn reinforces the importance of technology and uses what she learns in her teachings. "Dr. Varn is a very motivational professor. She taught us how to use different technologies to turn in assignments which will help me in the future. And she's always as helpful as she can be," said MVSU student Brittani Vassel. Dr. Varn has been working at MVSU since 2004. She is the 2012 Southern Conference on Language Teaching (SCOLT) Educator of Excellence, 2010 Best of SCOLT Presentation, the 2011 Mississippi Foreign Language Association (MFLA) Teacher of Excellence, and the 2008 MFLA Best Presentation. SANDRA M. PHOENIX Executive Director HBCU Library Alliance sphoenix@hbculibraries.org<mailto:sphoenix@hbculibraries.org> www.hbculibraries.org<http://www.hbculibraries.org/> 800-999-8558, ext. 4820 404-702-5854 Skype: sandra.phoenix1 1438 West Peachtree NW Suite 200 Atlanta,GA 30309 Toll Free: 1.800.999.8558 (LYRASIS) Fax: 404.892.7879 www.lyrasis.org<http://www.lyrasis.org/> Honor the ancestors, honor the children.