Language department chair draws from West Point, ballet experiences to teach students

Three months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Laura Vidler couldn’t shake off the urge to serve her country in some way. She didn’t come from a military background and didn’t know if she had what it took to be in the military, but she knew she had to contribute to her devastated country one way or another.

So, instead of enlisting and heading off to basic training, Vidler interviewed for an assistant professor position at the United States Military Academy at West Point in New York — and got the job teaching the Spanish language to cadets at the nation’s premier leadership institution.

“For me, it was a great opportunity because I felt like I didn’t have the skills to enlist in the military,” Vidler said. “I felt at the time it was some way I could contribute and serve my country in a really difficult and challenging time.”

For 12 years, Vidler worked her way up in the academic ranks as a civilian faculty member at West Point, until she finally decided to act on another impending urge to become a department chair of a foreign language program — something she would not have been able to do at West Point as civilian faculty members cannot hold that position. That urge led Vidler to the University of South Dakota last year, where she now presides as department chair of the university’s modern language and linguistics department.

From West Point to USD

USD is no military academy, where one mistake can leave a cadet in a life or death situation, but Vidler said teaching spanish here requires just as much passion as her previous position demanded.

“I knew it was going to be an interesting leadership challenge because the department had just restructured,” Vidler said. “About a year ago, the language requirement was reduced, so there was some morale challenges in the department, some leadership challenges, and I thought I was the right person to come in and make an impact.”

After having been at West Point for more than a decade, Vidler said some of the leadership skills the academy instills in its cadets have rubbed off on her, and she’s now working to implement them in her department at USD.

“There are some really basic things — acknowledge good work, model what you want to see in your faculty. Some things I’m trying to loosen up on…I’m pretty punctual, I like to keep meetings short, I don’t like to waste time. Those are some leftover things from West Point,” she said light-heartedly.

Aside from overseeing the modern languages and linguistics department, Vidler also teaches Spanish classes. This semester she is teaching SPAN 411, a course that emphasizes conversational skills.

Junior Meredith Powers, a Spanish and Political Science double major, is in the class and said the course has been one of the most rigorous language courses she’s taken in her education at USD.

“Her classes do ask for a lot of attention. If I miss one class, I feel like I might fall behind, but it makes me more mindful about skipping classes,” Powers said. “I enjoy that she asks for participation and different types of projects within her classes.”

One of the requirements in the course has students putting their Spanish-speaking skills to the test. Vidler developed a service learning curriculum that places students in real world situations where they have to use their Spanish skills. Her students have served as interpreters at a tax assistant program in Sioux City, Iowa and mentored Vermillion High School students studying spanish. Junior Kelsey McCann, who is minoring in Spanish, said the service learning projects are an experience she’s never had in previous classes.

“Real world experiences are a really different part of this class through the service learning projects,” McCann said. “I feel like I am not only learning the material, but retaining what I am learning through the practical experiences.”

One of the long-term goals Vidler has for the modern languages and linguistics department is to convey the impact understanding a culture and language can have.

“The student population is less diverse from where I was (in New York), and so more than ever, we need to be able to highlight the importance of the study of languages and cultures to graduate globally-aware citizens,” she said. “Part of that is creating energy, excitement and enthusiasm.”

Varying spotlights

While most of her days are spent teaching Spanish with the light of a projector shining on her face, there was a point in her life when a spotlight followed Vidler on stage as she pirouetted in a professional ballet company in San Diego, Calif.

Before ever deciding to attend college at New York University as an undergraduate or go to UC Irvine to earn her master’s and Ph.D., Vidler said all she wanted to do was dance since she was 10 years old.

“My mom took me to see ‘The Nutcracker,’ and I walked away and decided that’s what I’m going to do, I’m going to be a ballerina,” Vidler said.

Throughout her time as a ballet dancer, Vidler made her way through the ranks, starting out as a member of the junior company, an apprentice and finally a member of the company. Along with performing contemporary pieces, Vidler performed in shows like “The Nutcracker,” “Swan Lake,” “Coppelia” and “Giselle.”

Although she loved every minute of it, Vidler said there were a variety of factors that contributed to her deciding to give up the profession and attend college.

“There’s not that many people in the world who can say they’ve performed in the typical ballet repertoire,” Vidler said. “(But) it’s a very tough profession that involves injuries. It’s a short lived career. It’s very intense on your body and also on your mind, because while you are the performing artist, you are doing what other people tell you to do.”

Aside from performing as a ballerina, Vidler was a dance instructor at her ballet company. She said it was that experience that eventually inspired her to pursue a teaching career.

“I found that to be extremely satisfying to use your words and body to communicate something to someone else and suddenly they can do something they couldn’t do before,” Vidler said. “As I started languages (in high school and in college), I quickly realized I was good at them and liked it. I was fascinated that you could talk to hundreds of millions of people that you couldn’t before.”

More than two decades later, Vidler said helping others learn a new language is just as gratifying as when she taught aspiring ballet dancers.

“…In addition to teaching them a language, I was helping open their minds to other perspectives, other ways of seeing the world,” she said. “Being able to speak a modern language is not the end goal, it’s just the base to things like diplomacy, mutual understanding and communication.”

(Photo: Laura Vidler, chair of the modern languages and linguistics department, observes her collection of 12 Challenge Coins she was awarded throughout her time at West Point. Her most treasured coin is the Department of Foreign Languages coin. Trent Opstedahl / The Volante)