teaches new Agricultural
Institute Spanish course
Janna Franklin, 2001 graduate of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, is complementing her poultry science graduate research activities by teaching a recently launched Spanish course in the College’s Agricultural Institute.
At first glance, profesora Franklin’s conversational Spanish class seems much like any other language class on N.C. State University’s campus. The students’ flannel shirts and inscribed tees, baseball caps and jeans are as American as the soft Southern diphthongs that insinuate the Castillian accents they practice.
But this class of 13 or so is unique, as you can see on its syllabus, which lists such topics as “nouns for animals, farms, construction/labor, turfgrass/landscape, employee relations, instructions and commands.”
Franklin’s class is for Agricultural Institute students, who most likely will find it necessary in their future jobs as farm managers and agricultural leaders to speak daily with non-native Hispanics/Latinos.
Today, Franklin’s students are preparing to check out their family trees. But first they must learn kinship terms in Spanish: esposa, esposo: spouse; suegra, mother-in-law; yerno, son-in-law; nieta, granddaughter.
Franklin, who minored in Spanish while pursuing her bachelor’s degree in poultry science, knows how it feels to be surrounded by a language not your own.
In addition to her Spanish classes at N.C. State, she studied Castillian Spanish in Spain for eight months, living with a host family in Santander, a northern coastal city, and in the mountainous Basque country.
“I feel I learned so much more about the culture and the language since I was completely immersed,” she says. “In the fall, I took Spanish classes with other Americans. Spring semester I lived in an apartment in San Sebastián and took academic classes with other Spanish students. That wasn’t quite as easy as the previous semester!”
Franklin, a Wilmington native who intends to finish grad school in 2003, grew up “on the beach” and had no agricultural background.
“I guess that’s strange for a poultry science student,” she says. “But poultry science is such an interesting and diverse field that I wouldn’t change my decision to study it.
“My original goal was to become a veterinarian specializing in the pathology of commodity animals,” Franklin says. “I am proud that the poultry industry provided most of my college funds in all four undergraduate years.”
Franklin’s graduate research — in conjunction with Clemson University researchers — involves the interaction between a nanoparticle suspension and Campylobacter jejuni, a foodborne bacterial pathogen that causes, among other diseases, Guillain-Barré syndrome, a human and avian disorder resulting in acute neuromuscular paralysis.
Scientists use tiny lab-developed inorganic nanoparticles — billionths of a meter in diameter — to attempt to build a new generation of stronger materials, one molecule at a time, for applications ranging from medicine to aerospace.
“We want to see an affinity between the C. jejuni bacteria and nanoparticles, proving that with the application of nanoparticles to the bird’s gut, the nanoparticles will encircle the bacteria and occupy all its receptor sites,” Franklin explains. “In this case, the bacteria will no longer be able to bind to the gastrointestinal tract and will be flushed through the bird’s system. If C. jejuni colonization is reduced then, at processing, the carcass will be less contaminated. From a food safety standpoint, if this is effective, it would be very beneficial to the poultry industry.
“My job is to do the bird work,” she says. “Right now I’m running experiments in vitro, determining if there is any binding of C. jejuni and the nanoparticles.
“Unfortunately,” Franklin says, “there are many questions about the nanoparticle and its properties, most of which Clemson was unable to answer. Due to this, it is my responsibility to do some additional studies, pushing the actual field trials further into the future.”
Meanwhile, plenty of ag students need to learn Spanish, and she’s happy to oblige.
“I have really enjoyed teaching; it has made me so much more aware of the differences between students and instructors and their responsibilities,” Franklin says.
“I love it when they come to class and tell me they have been conversing in Spanish or were at least attempting to talk to someone of Hispanic descent,” she says. “At least they remember something!”
—
Art Latham
