Through her work at Mercer University, Dr. Katherine Roseau equips her students with new opportunities, experiences and possibilities for their future.
An associate professor of French, she was recognized with the 2025-26 Innovations in Teaching Award during the Faculty Awards Ceremony on the Macon campus on April 13. The award recognizes the efforts of a Mercer undergraduate faculty member who successfully provides student engagement learning opportunities inside and outside the classroom.
“Since joining Mercer University’s faculty in 2019, Dr. Roseau has transformed the French curriculum to align language study with students’ professional goals,” said Dr. Jose Pino, chair of the Department of World Languages and Culture. “Dr. Roseau has an immense impact on the lives of students as budding intellectuals and future professionals, and she is continuing to forge new pathways for students in French. Dr. Roseau is always innovating in the classroom — and making connections between academics and experiences outside of the classroom.”
Dr. Roseau holds a bachelor’s degree in French from Anderson University; a master’s degree in French civilization, society and culture from Middlebury College; and a Ph.D. in French literature from Purdue University. Among her scholarship focus areas are refugee and immigrant issues, the Holocaust, and individual and collective memory. Many of her projects use oral and written self-narratives to study how people’s identities are shaped in the contexts of war, migration and oppression.
“One of the things I really enjoy about teaching at Mercer and especially in my department is the ability to dream up projects and be supported in them,” Dr. Roseau said. “My most meaningful working relationships have been with colleagues who are willing to take risks with me.”
Dr. Roseau and Spanish Lecturer Libertad Aranza are co-directors of “Integrating Voices of Immigrants and Refugees: Faculty and Curriculum Development,” an interdisciplinary oral history project that is working to document and preserve the experiences of refugees and immigrants in Middle Georgia. The pair also led service-learning trips to the U.S.-Mexico border near San Diego in 2023 and 2024, giving French and Spanish students a firsthand look at migration in this area.
With Assistant Professor of Teacher Education Dr. Adam Keath, Dr. Roseau developed a Mercer On Mission program in France, and the third trip is slated for this summer. Participants work with organizations in Paris and Le Chambon-sur-Lignon that provide resources and support to refugees and asylum seekers.
“It gives them a very different perspective,” Dr. Roseau said. “They develop some relationships with these people. They have some great conversations. It gives them real-life examples.”
Dr. Roseau’s latest faculty collaboration is developing student internships in France with Dr. Elise Bouley, assistant professor of French.
“I think getting the award has reminded me of what I like about working with these colleagues and inspired (me) to do more of that. It’s also been very rewarding when students buy into these projects,” she said.
This spring, Dr. Roseau taught an advanced-level French course called France’s Dark Years, and the class visited the U.S. Holocaust Memorial and the Embassy of France in Washington, D.C. Students conducted research at the museum that focused on oral testimonies and presented their findings during Mercer’s annual BEAR Day in April. Following the trip, Grace Kouassi, who just graduated, applied for a job with the Embassy as an administrative agent/case management assistant for Campus France and recently received word that she was selected.
“It was amazing to see them take this project from the very beginning to the end to get to present it to their peers,” Dr. Roseau said. “I ask a lot of my students. But when they can see an outcome of some kind, like when they’re presenting to their peers … they see it as a real applicable part of their lives, beyond just the class. And a lot of what I get to do is based on human stories, and I think that really gets their attention too.”
Students in Dr. Roseau’s Francophone Cultures class in spring 2023 used their French skills to understand migrant issues close to home. In collaboration with the U.S. State Department’s Diplomacy Lab, students collected data about the Haitian diaspora in the U.S. and had conversations in French with members of the Good Samaritan Haitian Alliance Church in Lawrenceville.
“The stories of migrants in teaching, for me that’s been interesting to show students how they can use their French more locally in Georgia,” she said.
One of the first humanities projects to receive funding from the Mercer Undergraduate Research Scholar Training Initiative belonged to Dr. Roseau. In summer 2025, a Mercer student contributed preliminary research that helped Dr. Roseau launch a new project on the Holocaust and contemporary migration in France.
Dr. Roseau will spend the 2026-27 academic year on sabbatical in France, where she will continue this research and also explore opportunities for undergraduate research and internships.
Through her classes, Dr. Roseau helps facilitate real-world connections and opportunities. She developed a course to help French students take their language skills to the next level. Titled French for the Professions, students in the course are paired with French-speaking mentors who are working in their field of interest.
“I have seen firsthand how intentionally and effectively Dr. Roseau creates engaged learning experiences that connect academic content to students’ lives and to pressing global issues,” Dr. Keath said. “Dr. Roseau’s teaching reflects the core goals of engaged learning: shared intellectual responsibility, meaningful reflection, interdisciplinary thinking and deep student engagement.”
