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.....
August 2010
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 Family
La Familia Narvaez includes Darcia’s siblings Leon, Eric and Nona. Leon is a spanish professor at St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN. His former spouse, Nancy Paddleford is a professor of music and a pianist at St. Olaf College. Leon and Nancy have three children, Ben, Cristina and David. Ben received his Ph.D in history at the UT-Austin. Cristina is pursuing graduate work at Tufts University on a State Department fellowship. David is a recent graduate of 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 a rising 5th-grader. 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 parents to Jaxson and newborn Elanor.
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.
Go and meet everyone in the Narvaez Photo Gallery.
