Amanda Smith, ’23, presents at AATSP conference

This summer, recent graduate Amanda Smith (‘23, Spanish/Business double major), had the opportunity to travel to Salamanca, Spain for the 105th Conference of the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese (AATSP). At this conference, Smith represented Truman’s Rho Rho chapter of Sigma Delta Pi (SDP), the National Collegiate Hispanic Honor Society, by presenting about the chapter’s best practices in front of college students and professors from various parts of the world. During this presentation, Smith focused on Rho Rho’s cultural presentations, chapter events, community participation, fundraising, and excellent social media usage. Smith served as the president of the Rho Rho Chapter during the 2022-2023 academic year and was originally selected to present at this conference in October of 2022. She was one of only five students from around the country who was selected to present on behalf of SDP. Under the leadership of Smith, the chapter was recently named a SDP honor chapter (capítulo de mérito) and was the only chapter in the nation to receive the Ignacio y Sophie Galbis Award. Truman’s SDP chapter advisor, Dr. Stacy Davis, also had the opportunity to attend the 2023 AATSP Conference. Throughout the conference, both Smith and Davis learned a lot from the many research sessions they attended and were able to gather a host of information about ways to improve Truman’s chapter of Sigma Delta Pi for future years. Not only did Smith and Davis have the opportunity to attend this conference, both received awards while in Spain. Dr. Davis was awarded a travel grant from the Spanish government and Smith won the prestigious Gabriela Mistral award from SDP. Truman State University’s Rho Rho Chapter is the most awarded SDP chapter in the United States and has been named an honor chapter for the past 30 years consecutively. Now, after attending this conference and learning about the best practices of SDP chapters from around the US, Smith and Davis are confident that the future of Truman’s Sigma Delta Pi chapter will continue to be nothing short of extraordinary.