Faculty Profile: Dr. Deborah Dougherty
Spanish professor Deborah Dougherty has been surrounded with liberal arts education all her life. Growing up down the street from Hillsdale College and doing her undergraduate work at Aquinas College, she says she knew that she would teach at a liberal arts college.
Dougherty came to Alma in 1996, after working at the University of Southwest Louisiana. She fell into Spanish, liking the language in high school and feeling encouraged as an undergraduate to attend graduate school.
Interacting with the students, especially when traveling, is her favorite part of her job.
“When you’re traveling, you get to know the students as people, and they get to see you as a person,” she says.
Her Spanish degree has allowed her to travel all over the world and help people in non-academic ways. She has helped rebuild a small community in Honduras after a hurricane, and she was even in the delivery room with a woman she had just met to act as translator.
Golden Age (16th and 17th century) drama is her main research interest. It was a period tightly structured by strict social codes, but at the same time, there were many people living beyond the margins of their society. She says she loves the duality of the period.
She has published English translations of two novels written by Cuban exile, Josefina Leyva: "Ruth, The One Who Fled the Bible," 2000, and "Operation Pedro Pan: An Exodus of Cuba's Children," 2010.
In her free time, she enjoys reading, gardening, training and riding her horse and being with her family.
