Contributed by Samuel Martínez
El Instituto’s core faculty has added two new jointly-appointed faculty in Fall 2021:
Linda Citlali Halgunseth is joining El Instituto through a transfer of one-half of her appointment from the Department of Human Development and Family Sciences, where she is a tenured Associate Professor. Professor Halgunseth’s areas of research specialization include Mexican/American and African American parenting, cultural influences on parent-child relationships and parenting, children of immigrants, culturally-appropriate measurement development, and minority health and well-being. Halgunseth is also Director of Academic Affairs at UConn Hartford.
Katerina Gonzalez Seligmann is coming to UConn from Emerson College, as a tenured Associate Professor, jointly appointed with El Instituto and the Spanish section of the Department of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages. Gonzalez Seligmann studies the ways in which authors, works, and influences travel between Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Martinique and other territories of the Antilles.
We welcome Linda and Katerina to our core faculty and wish them many productive and happy years with El Instituto and their primary appointment departments.
As we welcome two new colleagues, we also congratulate and offer warmest wishes to another on her retirement from UConn. After nearly 25 years on the faculty of the Puerto Rican and Latino Studies Institute and later El Instituto, Marysol Asencio has retired from her joint appointment with the Department of Sociology. Advisor and mentor to dozens of undergraduate and graduate students over the years, Professor Asencio leaves a legacy of igniting student interest in the topics of Latina/o/x reproduction, sexualities research, and health care. Her wisdom, knowledge, humor, and calor humano will be irreplaceable.
Marysol asked that we not organize a formal retirement celebration at El Instituto — a request consistent with her “it’s-not-about-me” outlook — but she would very much appreciate hearing individually from people whose support made a difference for her in her career at UConn. Our hope is that Marysol will continue to be a strong friend of El In.
