Professor Avary Carhill-Poza was honored to present Jacqueline Sevillano-Campó with the Book Award for Academic Excellence in Applied Linguistics at the CLA Spring Convocation. Jacqui stands out among this year’s MA graduates because she exemplifies the spirit of applied linguistics, at least the way we do it here. She has dedicated her substantial talents to understanding how language is used in everyday activities to teach, learn, connect, understand, and create our social world. And through her critical engagement, she has shown her commitment to making our world a better place.

Jacqui joined our MA program having studied linguistics and worked in revitalizing Jaqaru, an Aymaran language that faces an uncertain future in Peru because of language and education policies that privilege Spanish. Jacqui built on these and other experiences to engage deeply with language policy and social justice during her MA. She crafted a thoughtful critical discourse analysis of Quechua language in political speech in Peru. She collaborated on research with multilingual immigrant students in public schools. She also taught children who speak Spanish as a first or second language and are learning English in a dual language program where she earned her ESL teaching license.

What ties these experiences together is the genuine care that Jacqui has for people whose languages and lives are marginalized in our society. Needless to say, with so much work to be done and so much energy and talent to dedicate to that work, Jacqui has many options open to her. We expect great things as she continues her journey as a scholar and an activist.