Ana Garcia Chichester, associate professor of Spanish, has been recognized with the J. Christopher Bill Outstanding Faculty Service Award at the University of Mary Washington for her contributions to the university as well as involvement and leadership in the community.
Chichester, who has taught at Mary Washington since 1984, has participated in numerous departmental and academic committees during her tenure at the university, including promotion and tenure, faculty affairs, the James Farmer Multicultural Center, the provost search, the UMW self-study, and strategic planning, among others.
In the community, Chichester serves as a member of the Rappahannock United Way Board, has chaired its Citizen Review Panel and currently chairs the Grants and Technical Assistance committee. She has been a member of the strategic planning and the organizational ethics committees for the MediCorp Health System, was a member of the Board of Governors of the Community Foundation of the Rappahannock River Region and continues to serve on its scholarship committee and was chair of the scholarship fund of the National Organization for the Advancement of Hispanics.
“She is the perfect model of collegiality, of the citizen scholar that we all wish we could be,” said Elizabeth Lewis, professor of Spanish, who recommended Chichester for the award. “As a direct result of her involvement UMW students have vibrant and rigorous programs of study, Latino high school students in our area have scholarship money available to them for college study, our community more effectively serves the needs of our Spanish-speaking neighbors and we all work and live in a richer more diverse environment with high standards and values that benefit us all.”
Chichester earned a doctorate from the University of Virginia, a master’s degree in Latin American literature from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a bachelor’s degree in Spanish and French from UMW. A member of the Modern Language Association, the Latin American Studies Association, and the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, she is an expert on 20th-century Latin American literature, particularly literature of the Caribbean.
An endowment that funds the award was established through the generosity of the late Christopher Bill’s former students, colleagues, friends and family members. It recognizes his extraordinary service as a member of the UMW teaching faculty from 1972 to 2001. He died in December 2001.
The selection criteria for the award stipulates that the recipient must have served a minimum of seven years as a member of the Mary Washington teaching faculty and must have been heavily and consistently involved in a variety of service capacities, including departmental, university-wide and community service. Nominations may be submitted by any member of the teaching faculty, staff or student body of the university.