In 2008-2009, Professor Rivers Parroquin began interpreting for the Porter County Interlocal, or SELF School, on a consulting basis; she continues to work with them this year as well.  SELF provides special education services to students in Porter County.  Professor Rivers Parroquin has worked with the team from SELF that evaluates students transitioning from First Steps, an early intervention program to pre-school.  She interprets for the team (which includes the head pre-school teacher, an educational psychologist, a speech specialist, and a special education teacher), the parents and students, assisting in a variety of tests for academic, emotional, linguistic, and psychological development of the students.  She also assists the Spanish speaking parents in completing necessary paperwork, interpreting for case conferences, and parent-teacher conferences.

Professor Rivers Parroquin completed her Ed.D., Doctor of Education at Loyola University's School of Education in Curriculum and Instruction program in the summer of 2008.  Her dissertation was titled: Integrated Curriculum and Urban Service Learning: Impacting Pre-service Teachers’ Attitudes about Multiculturalism.

During the summer of 2008, she assisted Gloria Ruff, Assistant Curator of the Brauer Museum in curating a fall exhibit, Encounters/Encuentros: Tradition and Innovation in the Art of Spain and Latin America.  She and Ms. Ruff selected the works together, and Prof. Rivers Parroquin translated the text into Spanish for the bilingual exhibit.  The idea of the exhibit evolved from Prof. Parroquin’s frequent use of the museum for class assignments.

In April 2008, Prof. Rivers Parroquin presented a paper at the Loyola University Chicago annual research symposium based on her dissertation research.

She has recently worked with the Spanish section on validating their new in-house placement exams that the section wrote, and previously worked with INTERLINK Language Center to evaluate, improve, and statistically analyze their in-house ESL placement exams.

Professor Rivers-Parroquin presented “Using digitized primary internet sources to enhance students’ language skills and cultural knowledge” at the Indiana Foreign Language Teachers Association Annual Conference, Indianapolis, IN, November 2005.

She developed the Spanish for Service Professionals course which was initially supported by a Lilly Vocations grant to help cover the cost of speakers and special materials and has now been added to the catalog as a permanent course offering, FLS 308.