UWMC’s newest Spanish professor really knows the language. Professor Eduardo Gregori is from Valencia, Spain, a city on the eastern coast of Spain. Here, Gregori grew up making many “fun memories of my childhood back home in Spain playing soccer with friends.”

Gregori studied English at the University of Valencia, where he had originally intended to become a high school English teacher. So how did he come to be a professor of Spanish in Wisconsin? At the University of Valencia, a fellow teacher spoke to Gregori about becoming a teaching assistant in the United States.

“I found it attractive the fact that I could be teaching my language to foreign students,” Gregori said. “It seemed to be a nice opportunity to do for a year or so.”

Gregori came to the States and began as a teaching assistant at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. It seems that a year or so wasn’t quite enough as Gregori stuck around UNL to complete his master’s degree in Spanish literature.

Master’s taken care of, Gregori completed his PhD in Spanish literature at Penn State. He defended his doctoral dissertation in January 2009 on early 20th century Spanish literature.

Having been to so many places, why would anyone come to teach at the UWMC and put up with the Wisconsin winters? “I liked the atmosphere here when I came for a campus tour,” Gregori said. “My colleagues are very friendly and [UWMC] seemed like a nice place to teach.”

When asked if he saw any major difference between Spaniards and Americans, Gregori replied “generally, people seem more stressed out in the States.”