After graduation, I moved to Phoenix, where my parents lived, and began searching for a good, meaningful job. After 6 months, I started working as a legal assistant at Snell and Wilmer, LLC. I even helped an attorney with some French translation projects. In 1999, I relocated to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where my now-husband attended graduate school. I worked at the University of Michigan in administrative support positions. Because of an interest in historic buildings and that there was an outstanding program at a nearby college; I enrolled in a graduate program in Historic Preservation at Eastern Michigan University. I attended from 2003 to 2006 and wrote a final project on a historic property that was threatened but preserved as part of my research. My husband and I moved to Lexington, Kentucky and I obtained part-time work in the historic preservation field there. He accepted a faculty job in Fayetteville, Arkansas where I have been since 2008. After being selective about a job search, I worked part time in the University of Arkansas Libraries Special Collections from 2010 to 2011. I obtained full-time employment as a research analyst in University Development in 2011 where I currently work. My love of French culture, literature, and language is a large part of my life. My classes at the U of A were wonderful–small, challenging, and engaging–and I adored my professors (Zegura, Metiuiness, d’Almeida, Agniery, Gessell, Minn). My husband, Ashley Dowling, took classes too. He is a professor of Entomology at the University of Arkansas and he has several French colleagues. We traveled to Montpellier in July 2008 ( il fait chaud!!) for one of his insect conferences and also visited Avignon, Pont du Gard, Lyon, Beaujolais region. I hope to return to Paris, although I have not been there since I was part of Arizona in Paris in 1995. I speak French often and have met French speakers all across the U.S. They are very impressed with my conversational French, even though it’s a bit rusty. In September 2012, I talked to a group of French men in Saint Louis, who were travelling the length of the U.S. Route 66. I also enjoy cooking French cuisine and would love to own a French-Southern fusion restaurant named “Alex Arc” market here in Fayetteville, in the middle of the Ozark region of Arkansas. I am very proud of the department and its faculty! Tucson, the U of A, and the Department of French and Italian hold special places in my heart!
