Congratulations to Karen de Bruin, Professor of French and Director of the Honors Program, for being named a chevalier in the Ordre des Palmes académiques! The distinction, which is French for “knight” in the “Order of Academic Palms” is France’s highest honor granted to academics for valuable service in education.

De Bruin has been at URI since 2007 and among her many contributions she has co-founded the International Studies & Diplomacy program, is the founder and director of the URI-Université de Rennes consortium exchange, and brought French playwright Jean-René Lemoine to the university in 2018. The title of chevalier, which is one of the oldest civil honors awarded by the Republic of France, acknowledges de Bruin’s mission to introduce the nature of French thinking while students are learning the language.

To read more about de Bruin’s work, check out Kristen Curry’s article here.