French professor Chelsea Ray is building a French culture center of excellence at the University of Maine in Augusta.

She spreads the word about Maine’s Franco-American history, culture and language by organizing programs offered on campus and in the community.

Ray’s academic language studies include French, Russian and comparative literature. She earned a doctoral degree in comparative literature from the University of California in Los Angeles.

Ray particularly enjoys interacting with Maine’s Franco-Americans.

“Franco-American culture is not well known,” she says.  She wants to help spread the cultural word through language and cultural activities planned in the classroom and beyond.

Her push to have students on campus or in the community “get involved in French at UMA” offers a variety of opportunities to learn about the French in North America and Franco-Americans in Maine.

Ray came to Augusta from California with her family in 2007 to accept a position as assistant professor of French and comparative literature. She was raised in Colorado Springs, CO, where she began learning French in high school.

“Unlike many Franco-Americans, I didn’t hear a word of French before the age of 15.  In fact, no one in my family had ever spoken a second language before I learned French,” she says.

As a result of her high school interest in French, she was selected to be an international exchange student during her junior year.  Her year-long experiences living with a host family in Brittany, France when she was 16 was one of total language immersion.   She studied all of her academic subjects in French. “I learned math, science, literature and history in French,” she says.   “It was a sink-or-swim situation.”

After Ray became fluent in French studies, she began to study Russian.  Her interest in learning the language was the result of wanting to read and study Russian literature. While in college in 1993-94, she entered another academic immersion program when she attended the Herzen Pedagogical Institute, in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Since moving to Maine, Ray has learned to appreciate the Franco-American history and culture.  “You really need to understand the Franco-Americans if you want to know Maine”, she says.

Ray’s teaching at UMA includes educating Franco-American students about how to stay connected to the French culture inherited from their relatives and ancestors.  She encourages students to interview their aging relatives because each person has a special story to tell about growing up Franco-American.

“My goal is to help pass on the stories about Maine’s Franco-Americans through first-person stories,” she says.  Students are encouraged to do audio or video recordings of their interviews.  “Students should learn that recording culture is a truly historic and productive endeavor,” she says.

Activities related to French at UMA include “Fun in French for Kids,” for ages 3-10 with help from volunteers in the community, and a new French Club. Cultural events and immersion activities include a class visit by Maine filmmaker Ben Levine, who produced the video “Reveil: Waking Up French.” At the French conversation table, Franco-American writer and playwright Gregoire Chabot has been invited to read from his work.  Likewise, Haitian poet Jean-Dany Joachim has also read his work.

Other visiting scholars include Rhea Cote Robbins, Ray Pelletier, Barry Rodrigue and Jerry DeWaters. Field trips are organized to “L’ecole Francaise du Maine” the French immersion school in Freeport.

Ray helped to create a website to provide updates and reminders about the programs at French at UMA.  A listserv is available from the site www.uma.edu/frenchatuma.html.  The community response to French at UMA has been wonderful.  “It is one of the most gratifying aspects of my position at UMA,” she says.

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