Bridgewater College honors Cook, Nordeng for excellence in world languages

Sydney D.  Cook and Virginia P. Nordeng were presented Raymond N. Andes Awards for Spanish at Bridgewater College.

The awards, which honor a former chair of the College’s world languages and cultures department, are presented annually to the top students majoring in Spanish. The late Dr. Andes, a 1940 graduate of Bridgewater College, taught French from 1946 until he retired in 1983.

Cook, a senior Spanish major with a minor in business administration, is the daughter of Gary and Gina Cook of Gloucester, Va. She is a member of Alpha Mu Gamma, a national foreign language honor society, and Omicron Delta Kappa, a national leadership honor society. She also is a member of Alpha Phi Omega, a national service fraternity.

During the 2019 fall semester, Cook studied abroad in Murcia, Spain, and she spent the 2019 May Term in Cuba.

Cook completed an internship with Skyline Literacy in Harrisonburg, Va., through Bridgewater College’s internship program. She helped teach English as a second language classes for people in the community.

Nordeng, a senior Spanish and communication, technology and culture double major, is the daughter of Tina Nordeng of Broadway, Va. She is a member of Lambda Pi Eta, a national communication association. She also served as an academic coach.

She presented a paper, “Cuba, ¿Donde los Sueños Van a Morir?” (“Cuba, Where Dreams Go to Die?”) at the 2018 Butler Undergraduate Research Conference. The paper was a literary analysis of an Anabel Enriquez short story using Marxist theory.

This spring, Nordeng was scheduled to present at ASPIRE (A Celebration of the Arts, Scholarship, Performance, Innovation and Research Excellence) at Bridgewater College. The event was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Nordeng’s paper was titled “Análisis del uso de los Redes Sociales con Relación a los Asuntos Sociales y Políticas a Través de Latinoamérica y los Estados Unidos” (“Analysis of Social Media Use in Relation to Social and Political Aspects Throughout Latin America and the United States.”) Written in Spanish, the paper used communication theories and focused on social media use.

Bridgewater College is a private, four-year liberal arts college located in the Central Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Founded in 1880, it was the state’s first private, coeducational college. Today, Bridgewater College is home to nearly 1,800 undergraduate students.