Mostly Darcia
Darcia and I knew each other professionally for several years before we shared a fateful banquet dinner together at the annual meeting of the Association for Moral Education, in her hometown of Minneapolis. We laughed, told stories, and danced, rather improbably, to The Girl from Ipanema.
Darcia has a rich, varied and complicated past. Her father Ricardo Augusto Narvaez was a Spanish linguistics professor at the University of Minnesota; her mother Maxine was farm girl from Elgin, MN.
Darcia was born in Minneapolis but spent the first 4 years in Puerto Rico before her family moved to St. Paul. She spent 2nd-grade in Guadalajara, 5th-grade in Bogota, 8th-grade in Pamplona, 11th-grade in Mexico City.
Darcia’s first job was age 7 when she was the voice of the puppet “Maria” on the weekly St. Paul KTCA TV show “Ya Hablamos Espanol” (“We Speak Spanish Already!). Darcia’s brother Eric was the voice of “Paco”.
Paco y Maria son famosos en las ciudades de Minneapolis y San Pablo. Por supuesto yo hablo espanol tambien. Ahem. Cough.
Darcia graduated from the University of Northern Colorado in 1976 majoring in music (organ) and Spanish. She wrote verse, worked as a church organist, and was a K-12 music teacher. She gave private piano lessons.
Then it was off to Baguio City Phillipines, where she taught K-12 music in the Brent International School.
When she returned to the Twin Cities she owned and operated “E-Span”, a business to teach adults Spanish using Superlearning. She was also the organist at Peace Lutheran Church in Lauderdale, MN. She did this for several years.
But before long she entered Luther Seminary in St. Paul and earned a M.Div in 1984. She was certified for the Lutheran ministry but opted instead to work for the Minnesota Migrant Council, the Hispanic Women’s Development Corporation, and the Blake School, where she was a middle school Spanish teacher.
In 1988 she entered the Ph.D. program in Educational Psychology at the University of Minnesota, graduating in 1993, She took a joint appointment in EDPSY and Curriculum and Instruction, published productively, landed a million dollar federal grant, and, in 1999, earned tenure and promotion in both departments.
In 1999 she also met me.
And that’s when things really started to get interesting.....
February, 2009
Darcia’s Research
Click on the book jackets above to learn more about Darcia’s work.
Darcia is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Notre Dame and director of Notre Dame’s Center for Ethical Education. Her departmental website describes her research interests, and her lab website describes her current projects, courses and students.
Darcia’s Political Writings
Darcia was very active in the Obama “ground game” and she worked as a poll watcher. She has written three editorials in local newspapers. Go here to read her views about patriotism; go here to read her open letter to the Notre Dame community on the environment; and here to read her Voice of the People take on President Bush in the South Bend Tribune.
Darcia News
Darcia landed a Spencer Foundation grant to write a book on “The Science of Virtue: Ethical Expertise for Morally Engaged Citizenship”, and so will have a year’s paid leave beginning January, 2008.
She has been working on a new theory she calls “Triune Ethics” that links various moral stances to neurobiological maturation of the brain in evolutionary history. Darcia just published a paper on this topic. Go here to have a look at a pre-print of the article.
And she was invited to do research and teach in Zurich this summer.
Darcia’s Family
La Familia Narvaez includes Darcia’s siblings Leon, Eric and Nona. Leon and his wife, Nancy Paddleford are professors at St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN --- Leon is a Spanish professor, Nancy is a concert pianist and professor of music. Leon and Nancy have three children, Ben, Cristina and David. Ben will soon receive his Ph.D. in Latin American history from the UT-Austin. Cristina just got back from an internship with the German parliament (she is multi-lingual), and will be attending graduate school. David is an undergraduate at St. Olaf.
Darcia’s brother Eric is a professor of Spanish at Normandale Community College, near the Twin Cities; Eric’s wife Wanda is a nurse. Their daughter Natalie is in the second-grade. Eric’s son Rick was a promotions manager for the Minnesota Timberwolves for many years, and is now a booking manager for a Christian club in downtown Minneapolis. Rick’s wife Jessica is an assistant to one of the Best Buy VPs. They are new parents to a boy, Jaxson.
Darcia’s sister Nona founded an advocacy group for children with severe allergies, and was instrumental in the passage of a recent law requiring ambulances in Minnesota to be equipped with Epi-pens. Her husband Jeff Schaefer is a data software manager for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. They have two boys, Max and Robby. Max is in the 4th-grade, and his little brother Robbie is in Kindergarten.
Go and meet everyone in the Narvaez Photo Gallery.
