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June 23, 2015鈥擠uring Commencement 2015, Heidi Byrnes, the George M. Roth Distinguished Professor of German, was honored with the Faculty of Language and Linguistics Distinguished Service Award. In her acceptance remarks, she compared graduating students鈥� time at Georgetown with her own career as a professor:

鈥淚 have been [on faculty at] Georgetown for nearly four decades…no doubt, those four decades are a rather different time period than the four years that have been the length of the sojourn on the hilltop for most of [the students]. But looking on those years in a telescoped fashion, I suspect that their rhythm has similar beats.鈥�

Byrnes feels there are many similarities between a faculty career and students鈥� experiences: the sense of pride of having been chosen to be at Georgetown; the anxious excitement about meeting expectations; and the sense of growth as well as challenges over the years. What stands out most about Byrnes’ time at Georgetown is 鈥渢he opportunity to meet other people, to work with them, to collaborate with them, and to make lasting friendships,鈥� she explained.

A professor in the since 1979, Byrnes began her Georgetown career as a graduate student. After earning her Ph.D., she was immediately hired by the university. As her career progressed, Byrnes became one of the first female full professors at Georgetown. She was also the first woman to chair the German department, where she helped create the .

She then became the first woman to serve as the university鈥檚 associate vice president for academic affairs, during a major time of transition for the university. Beginning in the 1980s, Georgetown had newly focused on its graduate research programs while trying to maintain its commitment to the undergraduate liberal arts experience. Byrnes was a central figure in determining how to merge the two experiences, both for students and for faculty, which she sees as an ongoing challenge.

鈥淭o be competitive the way we must be competitive, we need to continue to shore up our graduate programs and our research presence, but we also need to continue to focus on what it means to offer an undergraduate liberal arts education in the Jesuit tradition,鈥� she said.

Despite these shifts, she鈥檚 quick to point out the continuity she has experienced. 鈥淥ne thing that has helped in these times of transition鈥攁nd I see no change in that as far as the ethos is concerned鈥攊s the commitment of the faculty to the students; it is an extraordinarily strong component here.鈥�

This commitment to students pulled her back to the German department in 1995, where she continued to work on interdisciplinary teaching and research, this time through the creation of an innovative curriculum, 鈥�.鈥�

The entire department, including faculty and graduate students, was able to overhaul everything from teaching to collaborative research to merit guidelines around this new curriculum, which Byrnes attributes to an 鈥渆normously committed faculty culture to student learning.鈥�

鈥淲e needed to learn all sorts of new things and people were willing to learn,鈥� she said. 鈥淲hat we had was the commitment to ask, 鈥楥an we make this really good for student learning?鈥� We have been able to sustain that culture. We couldn鈥檛 even think of it in any other way.鈥�

In Byrnes鈥� signature course, , she would introduce the class with a gentle warning: 鈥淓verything you鈥檝e heard about this course in campus lore is likely to be correct,鈥� she told them. 鈥淚t鈥檚 very hard work. But I promise you, I will work hard if you will work hard. At the end of the semester, you will be amazed at how much you have learned and what you can do.鈥�

Students saw the benefit of this approach, including Byrnes鈥檚 daughter, Sabina Braithwaite (C鈥�86). A German and biology double major with a pre-med concentration, Braithwaite ended up in her mother鈥檚 class for a semester. Although they mutually agreed not to acknowledge their family relationship, Byrnes did get one late-night phone call from her daughter.

鈥淪he called at about 11:00 at night and was just furious. She said, 鈥業 have been working for the last five hours, I want you to know, on this essay that you鈥檙e making us write.鈥� I said, 鈥業f you want a good grade out of this, you will put in hard work.鈥欌��

Her son Eric Byrnes (C鈥�90) never had his mother as a professor, but he does keep tabs on her research and teaching work. During a recent phone conversation, he laughed at the idea of Byrnes taking it easy after retirement.

Byrnes鈥� post-retirement plans prove her son right. She will continue to serve as the editor for , which will celebrate its one-hundredth anniversary in 2016. As part of the centenary, there will be a series of conference presentations and a special issue of the journal鈥攁 project Byrnes has shepherded for the last two years, with particular emphasis on a collaborative paper written by fifteen people with different theoretical orientations. The goal is to come up with a platform statement for the teaching and learning of languages, which will be featured as the opening chapter of the centenary special issue.

鈥淚鈥檓 hoping that that in itself will contribute to the larger discussion in the language studies field,鈥� she explained. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 the whole point鈥攁 way of recognizing both the advances in recent scholarship and the challenges of a multilingual world to theory, research, and practice.鈥�

Byrnes sees special significance in the journal鈥檚 one-hundredth anniversary.

鈥淒uring World War I, just like now, we had all of these questions,鈥� Byrnes said. 鈥�’Can we get along with each other? Can we learn from each other? Can we deal with these things in ways other than warfare?’ Language and cultural studies and international relations have always claimed that if you know more languages, you will behave differently. You will be different. You will have certain dispositions towards understanding the other side that you might not have had if you had not had that experience.鈥�

That mentality is why Byrnes will continue to serve as the journal鈥檚 editor despite her retirement. 鈥淧erhaps that鈥檚 a statement about what I have been interested in all along,鈥� she said.

As to what she will do once she steps down as editor, Byrnes said, 鈥淭hen maybe [I will] find time to pursue some long-standing interests that tended to be sidelined and start developing some new ones!鈥�