Leticia Alonso, assistant professor of Spanish at JSU, is the recipient of the 2020 Humanities Teacher of the Year Award from the Mississippi Humanities Council. The annual honor recognizes outstanding Mississippians, from various disciplines, who bring “the insights of the humanities to public audiences.” Since 2017, Alonso has taught Spanish, literature and culture at Jackson State.
Nominated in February, Alonso shared her research during a presentation inside the College of Liberal Arts as required to receive the award. The core of her discussion centered on the intersection of poetry, modernism, celebrity film culture, in addition to the crossroad of low and high art.
In 2005, Alonso attained her bachelor’s degree in English philology from the University of Salamanca in Spain, where she was born and raised. She later received a Fulbright Scholarship and used it to continue her studies at the University of Buffalo in New York.
Alonso received her doctorate in comparative literature from the University of Buffalo in 2014 before returning to Salamanca. In 2017, she graduated with a doctorate in English from the University of Salamanca. She then applied for a professorship at JSU and settled in Brandon, Mississippi, the same year.
Among her many activities, Alonso works as an advis0r for JSU’s Alpha Mu Gamma Honor Society. She also gives back to the community through her work with One Voice. There she translates documents to help Latin Americans, who are U.S. citizens in the metro area, understand the importance of the United States census. She also translates documents for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency.
Alonso is married to Brian Phillips, a fellow professor of Spanish at JSU. The couple met while students at the University of Buffalo and tied the knot on June 22, 2019.