The New School

At The New School, Raúl, and his Languages Department colleagues, have endeavored to reimagine and re-envision the role(s) Languages play at the university, in a wide-range of areas, including: an improved  system of Coordination of the Language Programs, continued development  of full-time and part-time faculty, a revised department curriculum (course models), a review of the four language studies Minors offered by the department, the approval and implementation of Graduate Minors in Chinese Studies, French Studies, Japanese Studies, and Hispanic Studies, university-wide curricular planning and articulations with Milano, Parsons, Lang, and the College of Performing Arts (COPA), spearheaded  exploratory Study Abroad options, and conducted an Online Synchronous  Pilot (now entering its 5th year during AY 20-21) for introductory  courses in Japanese, French, and Spanish (with Chinese initiated in AY 18-19). He has served on the University Curriculum Committee (UCC) since  2016, and on University’s Honorary Degree Committee (2 cycles) and from  2015-2019 as part of the Executive Committee (EC) of the School of  Undergraduate Studies and collaborated with the initiatives of The Observatory on Latin America (OLA). More recently, upon the re-organization of the Languages Program, Raúl has served in Schools of Public Engagement's School’s Council and the Executive Dean's Office  Leadership Committee.

Raúl’s teaching portfolio has included courses in and beyond the Languages Department, including Professional Spanish (2016), Foundations of Gender Studies (2016, 2017), Cuba Now! Arts and Society (2016, 2018), Comparative Ethnic Studies in the Americas (2016), (a comparative research methods course, which intended  to serve students approaching ethnic studies from a wide-range of fields and disciplines), and more recent courses, Storytelling in Spanish and Latin American Film & Media. Other courses in Raúl’s repertoire include “Spanish Caribbean Media Arts,” “Latinx Lives” and “Latinx Media.” These courses contextualized current day topics associated with Latinx communities in the US and the Caribbean, broaching issues related to the term "Latinx," as well topics related to bilingualism and biculturalism in film/TV, new media, and literature. 

Associate Professor of Hispanic Studies within the Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts (previously Schools of Public Engagement), and affiliations at the School of Undergraduate Studies (SUS) in Liberal Arts & Media (Race+Ethnicity, and Gender+Sexuality programs); serves on the University-wide Curriculum Committee (UCC) and served as Co-Chair of the UCC in 2024-25; Honorary Degree Committee (HDC), and routinely serves on university-wide Promotions and Review Committees (PRC); active in university-wide Faculty Development in regards to teaching pedagogy and gender diversity in the classroom; serves on the Remote Teaching Task Force (college-level) in response to COVID-19; Middle-States Re-Accreditation Self-Study Working Group on “Design and Delivery of the Student Learning Experience” (2022-23).

“In my efforts to continuously develop and improve in teaching. I embark on assessing student’s performance in relation to the course’s learning outcomes by continuously engaging in improvements of course materials and teaching techniques. One recent innovation is the more frequent use of digitally available target-language materials in order to supplement weekly clusters of the course. Beyond the overall objective of improving language proficiency, I consistently implement activities that apply the target language to the development of critical thinking, in particular, real-life culturally relevant situations. With the integration of available digital materials in the form of Spanish-language media, civic and artistic cyber forums, and academic research tools, the thematic clusters of the course come to life.”

“I also continue to improve the pedagogical formats that increases the oral and listening competencies of students by implementing oral presentations of wide-variety. The use of drafting for written assignments has proven to develop self-authored student results, which empower students to take the helms of their learning. With my close guidance, I establish reflection moments throughout the semester in which students self-assess their learning in each of the four language skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing), as well as their cultural acquisition (depending on the course), and their general participation performance.”