By Balogun Kamilu Lekan
Biography
Uju Anya is a professor of applied linguistics and a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University whose critical discourse studies primarily examine race, gender, sexual, and social class identities in new Language learning through the experiences of African American students.
She was born on August 4, 1976, to a Nigerian dad and a Trinidadian woman. Uju is an indigene of Enugu state.
Uju is also famous for her support of the LGBTQ community. She has publicly declared she is a lesbian after her divorce from her husband.
Education
2011 PhD, Applied Linguistics – University of California, Los Angeles
2001 M.A., Brazilian Studies – Brown University
1998 B.A., Romance Languages – Dartmouth College
Career
Uju started as a Teaching fellow with the Phillips Academy Andover in 1998, where she teaches introductory, intermediate-level high school immersion Spanish classes.
In 2001, she became a visiting lecturer in the Portuguese Language at the Dartmouth College Department of Spanish and Portuguese. Uju coordinated the Portuguese program’s curriculum and pedagogy in this capacity, including cutting-edge multimedia resources, inquiry, social emphasis, and critical language studies emphasis on Afro-Brazilian culture.
Uju joined the Rassias Center for World Languages and Cultures as a Master Teacher in 2003. She taught and designed English Language immersion courses for executives in Tokyo, Japan, and Portuguese Language for U.S. executives in Brazil.
From 2005-2007, Uju worked as a Lecturer of Spanish and Portuguese Languages at the UCLA Department of Spanish and Portuguese.
She then worked with the UCLA Department of Applied Linguistics as a Lecturer, Applied Linguistics & Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL). In that capacity, Uju taught graduate and undergraduate applied linguistics, TESL, and service-learning in TESL courses, as well as academic writing and research skills.
In another capacity, Uju was appointed as an assistant professor of clinical education at the College of Education at Pennsylvania State University.
In 2016, Uju was appointed as an Assistant Professor of Second Language Learning, Department of Curriculum & Instruction Research Affiliate, Center for the Study of Higher Education at The College of Education at Pennsylvania State University.
She is currently a Professor of Second Language Acquisition at the Department of Modern Languages Associate at Carnegie Mellon University.
Marriage
Uju was married before her divorce. She had two children with her former lover.
Uju announced her divorce via a Twitter post, stating that she and her spouse have just finalized their divorce paperwork. She also indicated that she is free and has no plans to wed.
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Achievements
Honours and Awards
- Penn State College of Education Outstanding Teaching Award
- American Association for Applied Linguistics First Book Award
- ACTFL/Middlebury Research Forum Invited Scholar
- USC Rossier School of Education Faculty Teaching and Mentoring Award
- Dartmouth College Thurgood Marshall Dissertation Fellowship
- UCLA Graduate Division Dissertation Year Fellowship (declined)
- Centro Latino for Literacy Manos Amigas Volunteer of the Year Award
- Eugene Cota-Robles Fellowship for Doctoral Studies at UCLA
- Irene Diamond Fellowship for Graduate Study at Brown University
- Phillips Academy Andover Spanish Teaching Fellowship
Controversy
On September 8 2022, Uju Anya was caught up in a web of controversy for her controversial tweet after the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
The tweet, later taken down for violating the microblogging platform policy, referred to the Queen as “a chief monarch of a thieving raping genocidal empire.”
She wrote, “I heard the chief monarch of a thieving ra*ping genocidal empire is finally dying. May her pain be excruciating.“
The tweet was met with enormous backlash from the Twitter community, who viewed her opinion as insensitive, while others applauded it.
Uju Anya and Jeff Bezos
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos too lent his voice to condemn the controversial tweet.
Despite the inflow of criticism, Uju Anya never backed down from her view. She quoted the U.S. Billionaire tweet with the inclusion of an Igbo phrase, “Otoro gba gbue gi” which means “May you rot by your putrid bowels and die from uncontrollable diarrhea.”
Furthermore, she claps back at other netizens calling her out. In another tweet, she said, “If anyone expects me to express anything but disdain for the monarch who supervised a government that sponsored the genocide that massacred and displaced half my family and the consequences of which those alive today are still trying to overcome, you can keep wishing upon a star.”
However, Carnegie Mellon University has dissociated itself from Uju Anya’s act. A statement from the university reads, “We do not condone the offensive and objectionable message posted by Uju Anya today on her personal social media account. Free expression is core to the mission of higher education; however, the views shared absolutely do not represent the values of the institution, nor the standard of discourse we seek to foster.”
Disclaimer
The information in this article was curated from online sources. NewsWireNGR or its editorial team cannot independently verify all details.
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