Renate A Schulz
We the members of the UA Department of German Studies and of the Interdisciplinary Ph. D. Program in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching (SLAT) wish to honor Dr. Renate A. Schulz on the occasion of her retirement from the University of Arizona in 2009. She is certainly one of the most influential and innovative teachers and leaders that our fields of German Studies second language acquisition and teaching and foreign language education have known. She has received numerous UA national and international awards among them the Bundesverdienstkreuz erster Klasse from the Federal Republic of Germany ACTFL's Florence Steiner Award for Leadership in Foreign Language Education the ACTFL-NYSAFLT Anthony Papalia Award for Excellence in Teacher Education ACTFL?s Nelson Brooks Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Culture and the Henry and Phillis Koffler Prize for Outstanding Accomplishments in Teaching. Renate Schulz came to the U.S. from Germany in 1958. She holds a Ph.D. in Foreign Language Education from The Ohio State University. Before coming to the University of Arizona in 1981 she taught in the Peace Corps in Nigeria at Otterbein College at the State University College of New York at Buffalo and at the University of Arkansas. She also held visiting appointments at the United States Air Force Academy at the Universidad de las Americas in Puebla Mexico and at the University of Leipzig Germany. She served as the Department Head of German Studies the first woman to serve as Head in the College of Humanities from 1984-1990 and again as Interim Department Head for one year 2008-09. Renate was one of the founding mothers of the prestigious and internationally known Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Program in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching (SLAT) which began officially in 1991 but was in preparation for many years before served as its Chair from 1994-1996 and as its Graduate Advisor in the late 1990?s and again in the mid 2000?s. She is a dedicated and gifted administrator advocate scholar pedagogue editor and teacher who has touched many lives. Colleagues depend on her leadership and collaboration. Students who have been in her classes and who have worked with her laud her abilities as a teacher mentor advisor and role model. Her broad scholarly expertise and insight are amplified by the personal qualities she brings to her work: great energy enthusiasm generosity distinctive charm and humor. Renate your colleagues and friends in the Department of German Studies and in the SLAT Program celebrate the many contributions you have made over the years to each of us personally and professionally to the department and program that you have shaped and to the profession nationally and internationally. Thank you for all that you have done and will continue to do to exemplify all that it means to be an educator scholar leader ? and friend. Everything you contribute is offered with careful reflection and with great gusto seemingly unbounded energy and dynamism and a wonderfully refreshing and disarming sense of humor. We all owe you an enormous debt of gratitude.