National Capital Region faculty honor Rosary Lalik as Last Lecture Series speaker

Rosary Lalik, associate professor emerita and former director of Graduate Education Programs, was chosen by the National Capital Region Faculty Association as the speaker for the second annual Last Lecture Series. The Last Lecture Series was inaugurated last year to honor faculty in the region for service to the university and dedication to Virginia Tech's graduate programs. Each speaker is invited to choose a topic of his/her choice to present to an open audience, which includes current and former colleagues, students, alumni, and friends. The lecture takes place on Virginia Tech's official Reading Day, the day after classes end and before exams begin.

The title of Lalik’s lecture was “Making Ourselves and Our World Through Our Literacy Practices.” Following the lecture, Angela Huebner, president of the NCR Faculty Association presented with “esteem and admiration” a plaque to “honor her for her dedication to graduate education and the Virginia Tech community in the National Capital Region.”

Lalik's career includes extensive research on learning and teaching, with special focus on critical literacy with non-mainstream learners, including non-affluent children and adolescents. Her work has been published in numerous highly ranked research journals and collections. Consistently acknowledged for the high quality of her teaching, Lalik is a recipient of Virginia Tech's Wine Award for Outstanding Teaching. She retired from Virginia Tech in 2008 after 26 years of service.

During the lecture, Lalik asked her audience to consider the kind of world in which they would like to live and to consider literacies as “world shapers” that are learned through a synergy of mind, heart, and hand. She identified major purposes that have been advanced through literacies and then challenged the audience to think about literacies “we wish to develop to recreate ourselves and our world as we would want both to be.”

“I think the world needs all of us to create a better world, and as long as we have life and hope, we can do it,” Lalik said.

Posted May 14, 2009