Anto­nio Noguera, who recently retired after nearly two decades as instruc­tor of Span­ish and direc­tor of sev­eral other lan­guage pro­grams for Con­tin­u­ing Stud­ies, grew up in Madrid, Spain. Julie Dahl, Noguera’s suc­ces­sor, grew up on a dairy farm out­side New Glarus, Wis­con­sin. And she brings to her new posi­tion a depth of knowl­edge and a per­sonal warmth that make her a wor­thy suc­ces­sor to one of our most pop­u­lar instructors.

“I’m the grand­daugh­ter of Swiss immi­grants,” Dahl notes. “Some of my rel­a­tives back in Switzer­land are still a bit befud­dled over my career choice: Why Span­ish and not German!”

The foun­da­tion for that choice was laid when Dahl spent her junior year of col­lege in Barcelona. “I was doing a dou­ble major in Eng­lish and Span­ish, but the Span­ish part was less impor­tant to me until that year, which changed my life.”

After grad­u­at­ing from Lib­erty Uni­ver­sity in Vir­ginia, Dahl returned to the Iber­ian Peninsula—this time to a sub­urb of Lis­bon, Por­tu­gal to teach Eng­lish at a lan­guage school. “I stayed five years, became flu­ent in Por­tuguese as well, and wound up direct­ing the school! After five years I real­ized I needed to choose between com­ing back to the United States and mak­ing a life in Por­tu­gal. So in fall of 1999 I moved to Madison.”

While teach­ing Span­ish and Eng­lish as a Sec­ond Lan­guage at Madi­son Col­lege, Dahl enrolled as a grad­u­ate stu­dent at UW-Madison, focus­ing on Span­ish lit­er­a­ture with a minor in Por­tuguese. Two years ago she com­pleted her PhD.

“My dis­ser­ta­tion exam­ines some of the most com­mon stereo­types the Span­ish peo­ple have of the Por­tuguese peo­ple. My post-graduate research involves a Span­ish tele­vi­sion series, Cuen­tame Como Paso (Tell Me How It Hap­pened), which was inspired by the Amer­i­can series The Won­der Years. Cuen­tame Como Paso sparked a rev­o­lu­tion in Span­ish tele­vi­sion and is now in its 12th sea­son. My research focuses on the Por­tuguese adap­ta­tion, Conta-me Como Foi.”

Dahl’s hus­band, Jon, works with grad­u­ate stu­dents and fac­ulty with Inter­Var­sity Chris­t­ian Fel­low­ship. Their older son, Erik, is a fresh­man at West High School, and their younger, Hans, is in kinder­garten at Franklin Elementary—in fact, the boys began high school and kinder­garten on the same day last September.

“Our fam­ily has spent a lot of time in Spain, includ­ing a sab­bat­i­cal year in 2007, which of course was an unfor­get­table expe­ri­ence for all of us. When­ever we say we’re going to visit a new place, Hans asks, ‘Is it in Spain?’ ”

Around the time that Dahl and her hus­band were decid­ing to set­tle per­ma­nently in Madi­son, Con­tin­u­ing Stud­ies was actively search­ing for a suc­ces­sor to Dr. Noguera. Dahl says she felt drawn to Con­tin­u­ing Stud­ies for many rea­sons, “espe­cially the prac­ti­cal­ity of teach­ing non­tra­di­tional stu­dents. It’s excit­ing to explore what our stu­dents’ great­est needs are and to find bet­ter ways of meet­ing those needs.

“And I love teach­ing a lan­guage in a way that’s designed to help stu­dents use the lan­guage in the real world rather than get a good grade on an exam.

“Another rea­son I’m glad to be here is the atmos­phere of excite­ment: we’re get­ting to take part in a rev­o­lu­tion in adult learning!”