- Professor of Spanish and Film/Media
- Phone: 401.874.4698
- Email: mertxe@uri.edu
- Office Location: Swan Hall 104
Biography
Megan Echevarría, Professor of Spanish and Film/Media, earned her PhD at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She specializes in Hispanic literary, cultural, and film studies, with keen interest in intersecting disciplinary boundaries. Her writing in the humanities centers primarily on interconnections between contemporary literary and film studies and history, human rights, social justice, and interculturality. She has experience in curricular innovations that integrate humanistic and intercultural content and competencies across the full spectrum of the Spanish curriculum, as well as into STEM and social science education. Her latest book, Rehumanizing the Language Curriculum (also available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble), brings together new work by renowned scholars in the field of instructed second language education to assert the critical and central role of literature at all levels of innovative, effective, and stimulating language curricula. Contributors include Claire Kramsch, Guy Cook, Geoff Hall, and Elizabeth Bernhardt, among others.
Outside of her teaching and research, Dr. Echevarría enjoys contributing to the Rhody community and beyond, working for the common good. As NCAA Faculty Athletics Representative, she has the honor of serving as an advocate for student-athlete well-being and as a bridge between the Athletics Department and the academic units of the university. In this role she helps strengthen the multifaceted support system for URI’s extraordinary student-athletes: she defends their rights, assists with self-advocacy, and supports their access to opportunities and resources related to their development and success.
As Faculty Senator, member of the Faculty Senate Executive Committee, and former Senate President she has had the privilege of contributing to shared governance processes and to making our community stronger through respectful dialogue, fruitful consensus-building, and meaningful collaboration.
Selected roles in stewardship and leadership
- NCAA Faculty Athletics Representative and Chair of Athletics Advisory Board (2021-present)
- Director, University of Rhode Island Research Foundation Board of Directors (2023-present)
- MLA Delegate Assembly, Academic Labor and the Profession seat (2022-2025)
- Faculty Senate Executive Committee (2019-2021; 2022-2024)
- Chair of Faculty Senate Constitution, By-Laws and University Manual Committee (2022-2023)
- President, Faculty Senate (2020-2021)
- Section Head, Spanish Program (2018-2021)
- Chair, Departmental Proficiency Implementation Committee (2017-2018)
- Chair, Departmental Strategic Planning Committee (2016-2017)
- Director, Spanish International Engineering Program (2008-2014)
- Chair, Academic Affairs Global Education Task Force (2010)
- Coordinator, Beginning and Intermediate Spanish Program (2004-2008)
Selected grants, awards and honors
- Co-Principal Investigator: “A New Model for Integrated Humanities and Engineering Education” (Principal Investigator: Sigrid Berka) National Endowment for the Humanities grant in the Humanities Connections program (2023-2025)
- Innovation and Entrepreneurship Faculty Fellow, RISE-UP (Resilient, Innovative, Sustainable Economies via University Partnerships), United States Office of Naval Research (2024)
- Project Completion Grant, URI Division of Research and Economic Development (2023)
- Global Mobility Award, URI Global (2023)
- President David M. Dooley and Reverend Lynn Baker Dooley Senate Faculty Award (2021)
- Career Enhancement Grant, URI Division of Research and Economic Development (2021)
- Consultant on interdisciplinary competitive grant “URI Preschool Development Grant” (Co-Principal Investigators: Sue Adams and Jessica MacLeod), State of Rhode Island Department of Health and Human Services (2019)
- Principal Investigator: “Launching the Spanish International Engineering Program in Chile,” 100K Strong in the Americas Innovation Fund Grant inaugurating President Obama’s 100,000 Strong in the Americas Initiative (2014)
- Students’ Undergraduate Teaching Award, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (2004)
- Other award nominations: URI Foundation University Teaching Award (2010, 2018), Faculty Excellence Diversity Award (2008, 2010, 2015), and College of Arts & Sciences Mentoring Award (2008)
Research
- Hispanic literary, cultural, and film studies
- Language and literature education
- Contemporary Spanish
- Interdisciplinary education
- International education
- Spanish for specific purposes and professions
Selected courses taught
- Modern Spanish narrative
- ¡¡¡GOOOL!!! Soccer literature and culture across the Hispanic world
- Microtheater. Textual analysis, creative writing and performance
- Introduction to literary genres and literary analysis
- Hispanic voices of diversity and inclusion
- Innovations in sustainability in the Hispanic world
- Spanish for business and technology
- Spanish for pharmacists
- Intercultural encounter in Latin American and Spanish film
- Revolution and Hispanic film
- The Spanish Civil War in film
Education
- Ph.D., Spanish Literature, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
- Master of Arts, Spanish and Spanish-American Literature, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
- Bachelor of Arts, International Studies & Spanish, University of Richmond, Virginia
Selected Publications
Echevarría, Megan M. and Iñaki Pérez-Ibáñez. “Humor and Intercultural Empathy: Teaching Comedic Films of Intercultural Encounter.” Ed. Beverly Hogue. Teaching Comedy (MLA Options for Teaching volume) MLA, 2023, pp. 55-63.
Echevarría, Megan M. (Ed). Rehumanizing the Language Curriculum. Peter Lang, 2023.
Echevarría, Megan M. “Reconcilable Differences.” Ed. Megan M. Echevarría. Rehumanizing the Language Curriculum. Peter Lang, 2023, pp. 1-10.
Echevarría, Megan M. “Scaffolding Literature Education in Communicative and Intercultural Context.” Ed. Megan M. Echevarría. Rehumanizing the Language Curriculum. Peter Lang, 2023, pp. 121-138.
Pérez-Ibáñez, Iñaki and Megan M. Echevarría. “Incarcerated Performance: The Space and Context of Prison as Stage.” Ed. Barbara Mújica. Staging and Stage Décor: Early Modern Spanish Theater. Vernon, 2022, pp. 57-74.
Echevarría, Megan M. “Entrevista con Hugo Medrano: Teatro clásico y compromiso multicultural.” Comedia Performance. Vol. 18.1 (2021) pp. 101-113.
Echevarría, Megan M. “A Comparative Analysis of Two Online Videoconferencing Initiatives for Conversational Practice with Native Speakers.” Teaching Language and Teaching Literature in Virtual Environments. Ed. María Luisa Carrió Pastor. Singapore: Springer, 2018, pp. 163-79.
Berka, Sigrid, Emily Ann Serman, Megan M. Echevarría, Lars O. Erickson, Silke A. Scholz, and Anette Geithner. “Integrating a Portfolio of Short with Long-term International Programs in the Engineering Curriculum.” 2015 ASEE International Forum, Seattle, Washington, 2015, June. ASEE Conferences.
Echevarría, Megan and Sigrid Berka. “Preparing Engineers for Global Challenges: Engaging with Chile through the 100,000 Strong in the Americas Initiative.” Proceedings from the 2014 ASEE Annual Conference International Forum. 2014, 20.30.1-20.30.9.
Echevarría, Megan. Letras literary reader for ¡Anda! Curso intermedio 2nd ed. Audrey L. Heining-Boynton, Jean LeLoup and Glynis S. Cowell. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2013.
Echevarría, Megan. ¡Anda! Student Activities Manual to accompany ¡Anda! Curso intermedio 2nd ed. by Audrey Heining-Boynton, Jean LeLoup and Glynis Cowell. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2013.
Echevarría, Megan. ¡Anda! Student Activities Manual to accompany ¡Anda! Curso elemental 2nd ed. by Audrey Heining-Boynton and Glynis Cowell. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2013.
Echevarría, Megan. Letras literary reader for ¡Anda! Curso intermedio 1st ed. Audrey L. Heining-Boynton, Jean LeLoup and Glynis S. Cowell. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2010.
Heining-Boynton, Audrey, Glynis S. Cowell and Jean LeLoup with Megan M. Echevarría, María del Carmen Caña Jiménez and Antonio Gragera. ¡Anda! Curso intermedio. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2010.
Echevarría, Megan. “La representación del exilio republicano en la serie El exilio y la Segunda Guerra Mundial de Virgilio Botella Pastor.” Letras Peninsulares Vol 22.2 (2010) 21-35.
Echevarría Megan and Ignacio Pérez-Ibáñez. “La presencia de la muerte en El lápiz del carpintero de Manuel Rivas.” Ed. Ricardo de la Fuente Ballesteros & Jesús Pérez Magallón. Necrofilia y necrofobia: representaciones de la muerte en la literatura hispánica. Universitas Castellae Press, 2010, pp. 65-74.
Echevarría, Megan. ¡Anda! Student Activities Manual to accompany ¡Anda! Curso elemental 1st ed. by Audrey Heining-Boynton and Glynis Cowell. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2009.