Cynthia María Ovando-Knutson, Ph.D.
Spanish Program Director
BCLAD (Bilingual Cross-Cultural Language and Academic Development) Program Director
Latin American Literature & Spanish Language and Culture Faculty
Having been born in Mexico City, and having grown up in Bogotá and Cali, Colombia, as well as Guadalajara, Mexico, Cynthia Ovando-Knutson brings her own real life experiences to her courses in addition to an abundance of knowledge from many years of formal study. Her added interests in human rights issues and gender studies demonstrate her passion for peace and social justice. Students appreciate her teaching philosophy which steers away from boring and factual but instead seeks to make the material accessible and relevant through student involvement.
“Learning truly occurs when minds are engaged, defenses are down and when beauty, pain or laughter are encountered. Factual knowledge without emotional connectedness can be fairly dry, and its retention can be quite fleeting. That is why I believe that identifying with passion, laughter and pain are key to the educational process, and I consciously strive to create a safe and non-threatening environment for this kind of interaction in and outside of the classroom.
“As FPU works towards better reflecting the diversity of God’s kingdom, I feel called to being a part of creating and sustaining climates in which all our students can flourish. With close to a 25 percent Latino student population, this is a demographic which is not standard in Christian institutions of higher education. It is a rich cultural context, and I am excited about the possibilities and need of equipping students with oral and written language proficiency skills in Spanish within the context of the Central Valley.”
