October 6, 2020Campus, Community, Lifestyle, Student Lifestyle, Students CMU Is Fired Up For Hispanic Heritage Month More
April 28, 2020Academics, Campus, CMU Alumni, College Life, College Living, Student Lifestyle, Students To The 2020 Seniors
April 20, 2020College Living, Student Lifestyle, Students What The Editorial Staff Is Doing In Quarantine
January 11, 2021Men's Style, Student Styles, Style, Style & Beauty, Trend and Beauty, Uncategorized, Women's Style Winter Fashion Trends More
November 25, 2020Campus Fashion, Men's Style, Student Styles, Style, Style & Beauty, Women's Style Zoom Thanksgiving Outfits
November 25, 2020Campus Fashion, Men's Style, Style, Style & Beauty, Women's Style CMU Bookstore Holiday Gift Guide
October 19, 2020Student Styles, Style, Style & Beauty, Trend and Beauty Halloween Costumes: Pet Edition
September 9, 2020Arts & Entertainment, Arts & Entertainment Art Reach is keeping creativity alive through COVID-19 More
January 26, 2021People of Central CMU Softball Player Opens Up About COVID-19, Coping With Uncertainty
November 9, 2018Archives, Arts & Entertainment, Community, Food & Beverage, Seasonal Issues, Style, Style & Beauty Check out the Spring Issue 2018
September 27, 2010 Lifestyle Cultural passion infused SPN professor During her undergraduate studies at Central Michigan University, Spanish professor Lorrie Murray studied abroad in Mexico and fell in love with the country. According to Murray, the time helped her with her Spanish speaking skills and to further her degree. “Everything about the culture past and present excites me,” Murray said. ”It’s interesting, colorful, beautiful and the people are so genuine and welcoming.” Murray received her bachelors and masters degrees in secondary education with an emphasis in Spanish from CMU and has been a professor at CMU for four years. Her curriculum relies on the cultural communicative aspect of learning the Spanish language. How students communicate in class is based on how relevant the material is to the students. Murray uses skits and word association to help students understand and communicate the language in their own way. “It’s not about me, it’s about me giving students the tools to learn the language and to become proficient,” Murray said. Midland sophomore Kayla Striker had Señora Murray in the spring of 2010 for SPN 201 and said she truly enjoyed the class. “She’s so enthusiastic about Spanish. She’s probably my favorite teacher so far here at Central,” Striker said. “She had activities that helped you remember the material, like acting out vocabulary words, or she would sometimes act out skits.” Murray is also the foreign language subject matter supervisor at CMU. This aspect of her position requires that each semester she observes all student teachers in the foreign language department. Her class times are limited to Mondays and Wednesdays to allow her the time to travel to the high schools where students are student teaching on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Despite everything that is required of her as a professor, such as lesson plans, grading, and traveling to schools around the state, Murray always puts family first. Her family has a small legacy growing at CMU. Her father and mother are both retired faculty members and her aunt and uncle are current faculty. “I have no shame in saying that they come first,” Murray said. “I am so lucky to have a supportive family that loves what I do and takes interest in what I do.” Balancing family and work is a struggle for any full-time mother or father but Murray said for her it seems to happen naturally. With everything she has to do she still finds the energy to do it all. “As soon as I’m in front of the class there is a switch that just turns on,” Murray said.” I love to ham it up.” And it shows, as Murray’s passion for teaching never ends. She attributes her passion to her mentors, her mother, retired CMU faculty member Mary Gilingham, and Sue Knight, foreign language department chair. Murray said they both inspired her to be who she is today.