Gala, Smith recipients of Wake Forest professorship

March 3, 2000

Wake Forest University has appointed Candelas Gala and Margaret Supplee Smith as Wake Forest Professors, a special professorship given to outstanding faculty from the undergraduate College.

Gala, professor and chair of Romance languages, specializes in 20th century Spanish literature and culture. She is an internationally recognized expert on Spanish poet Garcia Lorca and has published three books about his work. Gala has also edited a collection of essays on women authors from Spain and Latin America. In addition, she has published numerous articles on Spanish literature and culture and presented papers at national and international conferences. Gala joined Wake Forest in 1978 and was named department chair in 1996.

Gala has a bachelor’s degree in English and German philology from the University of Salamanca in Spain and a master’s and doctorate in Spanish literature from the University of Pittsburgh.

Smith, a professor of art and department chair, is an architectural historian and has published extensively in the field. Her scholarly work also extends to cultural trends, women’s studies and urban economics. Smith coordinated the North Carolina Women’s History Project for the North Carolina Museum of History and curated the women’s history exhibit, which opened the museum’s new building in 1994. She also co-authored the book, “North Carolina Women: Making History.” The book received the Mayflower Cup Award for Nonfiction.

Smith came to Wake Forest in 1979 from Boston University where she was the founding director of the graduate program in historic preservation and the associate director of the American studies program. She served as chair of Wake Forest’s art department from 1980-1988 and was named to that position again in 1997. Smith earned her doctorate in art history from Brown University. She has a master’s in art history from Case Western Reserve University and undergraduate degrees from Stephens College and the University of Missouri. She also studied art history at Florida State University.

Wake Forest Professorships are funded by the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation and considered one of the university’s highest honors. Recipients exemplify the university’s teacher-scholar ideal in their teaching and contributions to their field. Recipients are nominated by faculty members and then selected by the dean of the undergraduate College and a committee of previous professorship recipients from various departments.