Professor Carmel Vassallo will retire in October 2021 after an inspiring and successful career as an educator and a scholar. Spanish was first introduced into the University by the hand of Prof. Vassallo in October 1987.
A B.Ed in Spanish was introduced in 1991, during Prof. Vassallo’s stay in Spain where he was engaged in following a PhD at the University of Barcelona, but this gradually lost steam and it was not until 2009, when Spanish & Latin American Studies became a fully-fledged department of the Faculty of Arts under the leadership of Prof. Vassallo, that Spanish joined the mainstream, especially with the offer a year later of a BA(Hons).
A postgraduate MTL in Spanish is currently offered by the Faculty of Education to attend to those who want to train as teachers.
In parallel with his work in the promotion of Spanish & Latin American Studies, Prof. Vassallo has also been very active in the field of maritime history broadly conceived. He was instrumental in the setting up of the Mediterranean Maritime History Network, which he coordinated for over a decade and during that time he published extensively both his own research and that of others, particularly young scholars, and organised conferences in Malta, Italy, Turkey, Spain and Romania which attracted an ever-increasing number of participants.
Over the decades, educating generations of students at UM, leading in the field of Spanish and Maritime history, and heading the Department of Spanish and Latin American Studies, Prof. Vassallo’s dedication and professionalism has inspired students, colleagues and Hispanists in Malta and abroad.
Following this month, he remains a mentor and a friend dearly appreciated by his former students and colleagues.
On the occasion of his retirement, the Department of Spanish and Latin American Studies would like to pay tribute to Prof. Vassallo and express their gratitude for his invaluable service over the years.