International Programs

Lille, France - Dr. Diane Beckman

Dr. Beckman's Bio

I was born and raised in outside Washington D.C. I started studying French in middle school and always felt at a special connection with the language. As a student at Beloit College, I spent a semester abroad in Brittany in college. I also spent my junior year field term working in a hospital in Houston, Texas. I had returned to college my senior year to begin pre-med courses when I got a phone call from a Swedish family asking me to tutor their daughter in French. That evening I decided that teaching French was really what I wanted to do, and the rest of my education began to fall into place.

I earned an MA and PhD from UNC-Chapel Hill in Comparative Literature where I taught French and Great Books. I spent my final year as a grad student as the assistant the UNC Study Abroad program in Montpellier, France. I taught English and American civilization at the Université Paul Valéry and my husband enjoyed a year’s leave without pay from his job as a hydrologist for the USGS.  I spent the next decade raising two children and writing my dissertation. As both projects reached appropriate stages of completion, I returned to the classroom, first as a K-5 French specialist at the Raleigh School and then at NC State. One day, at a faculty meeting, the question was asked: “Who wants to go to Lille next summer?” I raised my hand and the rest is history.