Academics at MBC
Faculty
Ivy
Arbulú
Ivy Arbulú is associate professor of Spanish. She came to the
U.S. after completing her college education in literature with a minor
in linguistics at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú.
She completed her MA and PhD at the University of Virginia. The two
main areas of Spanish language literature that interest her are the
Spanish Golden Age poetry and prose and modern Latin American fiction.
For the last three years, Professor Arbulú has been learning
Arabic. Her goal is to be able to read medieval Andalusian poetry written
in Arabic. Apart from learning another language, she enjoys reading,
going to the movies, walking with her dogs, and traveling to her native
Peru to enjoy the good food that she misses so much.
Julie George Garkov
Julie George Garkov, adjunct instructor, (BA Kalamazoo College; MA
TESOL, The Pennsylvania State University; MA Spanish, California
State University, Sacramento). Julie has been teaching Spanish and
English as a second language at MBC since 1993. She has lived, studied,
and traveled extensively in Spain, and has also done graduate work
in Mexico and Peru. As an undergraduate she studied at the Université de
Caen in France for one semester, and after graduation taught EFL
in France as a French government scholarship winner. Julie enjoys
practicing yoga, gardening, reading, and hiking with her husband
and two children.
Nelson Sanchez
I was born in the island of Cuba. My family immigrated to the United
States during the era of the “Freedom Flights” from Havana
to Miami. We arrived in Miami when I was 11 years old. Our stay in
Miami lasted but a few months as we moved to Hartford, Connecticut
where employment opportunities were better for my father. I attended
a public junior high school in Hartford; it’s there that I
began to learn English. By the time I attended Hartford Public High
School I was quite proficient in the use of English, so I was placed
in college-bound courses. I graduated with a high rank in this very
large high school and my hard work was rewarded when I was accepted
to Amherst College. I graduated from Amherst College with a Spanish
major and English minor. At Amherst I became keenly aware of the
value of a liberal arts education; an awareness that has motivated
and inspired me throughout my life. Upon graduation I worked in several
businesses: insurance, law, and advertising. Some years later I decided
to attend graduate school in Spanish literature. I studied for six
years at the University of Texas at Austin. There I received a Master’s
degree and completed all my work, including the comprehensive examinations
for the PhD. Before I finished my thesis I started to teach at Wake
Forest University and was so taken by technology and its use in education
that I took yet another turn. This latter field (i.e. technology
in teaching) I’ve cultivated on my own. Here at Mary Baldwin
College, I use my experience in diverse disciplines to teach Spanish,
to teach the use of technology in teaching, and to supervise the
Language Resource Center. I’m living proof that a liberal arts
education can take you for quite a ride...
