Elizabeth Locey, PhD

Chair, Dept of Modern Languages and Literatures
Secretary of Women in French Associate
Professor of French

PhD in French, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1997

MA with distinction in French, UW-Madison, 1991

BPh in Interdisciplinary Studies, Miami University, 1990

Elizabeth Locey has been director of the French program since arriving at Emporia State in the fall of 1997, after completing her PhD with Elaine Marks. Her book is entitled The Pleasures of the Text: Violette Leduc and Reader Seduction (Rowman and Littlefield, 2002), and her research interests include French and Francophone women writers and cinema. Her interest in women writers is lifelong and is reflected in her participation in the Ethnic and Gender Studies program at ESU as a member of its steering committee, and through her work with the international association Women in French, where she has been secretary since 2004 and a regional representative to the executive committee before that. Her interest in film is of more recent vintage, and her special interests include New Wave cinema and African film. For six years she won grants to run a French Film Festival on campus to promote French and Francophone culture and to share critically acclaimed films with the campus and community.

As chair of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, Dr. Locey has supervised the establishment of the program in Arabic, the expansion of the Spanish program, the institutionalization of the East Asian Studies program, a departmental name change, and several million dollars worth of federal Department of Education grants in ESL. Most significantly, however, she oversaw the proposal and approval by the Kansas Board of Regents of a new Master’s of Arts program in TESOL. This is the first program of its kind within the state of Kansas.

Past winner of the LA&S Service Award, Elizabeth Locey is sponsor of the French Club and Pi Delta Phi, member of Honor’s Council and Eth/Gen Steering Committee, and many other groups on campus and within the profession. At home, she is the proud mother of a daughter (Anne-Charlotte) and two westies (Castor and Pollux).