Sharon K. Montano, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Spanish
Coordinator of Spanish Teacher Licensure

B.A., M.A., Ohio University
Ph.D., State University of New York at Albany

Hines Hall
smontano@barton.edu | 800-345-4973 x6460

Dr. Sharon Montano graduated from the State University of New York at Albany with a Ph.D. in Spanish and secondary specializations in linguistics and literary theory. Her doctoral dissertation on Chilean novelist José Donoso was nominated for the President’s Award for Best Dissertation.  She earned a B.A. and an M.A. in Spanish with certification in TOEFL/TOESL  and concentration in Latin American Studies  from Ohio University. She has been Barton’s Director of Hispanic Studies since the program’s inception in 1986 and Program Coordinator of Spanish Teacher Licensure since 2008.  In 1994, she founded and continues to direct the Barton College Summer Study Immersion Program at the University of Zamora in Michoacán, Mexico, and also teaches an intensive summer course in English as a Foreign Language.   She is the recipient of the Jefferson Pilot Faculty Member of the Year Award and a tenured professor at the Barton College.

Daughter of a Federal Aviation Administration engineer and former Marine, Montano was born in New York and grew up in diverse regions of the U.S. She studied abroad for the first time in Mexico as an undergraduate and, as a result, became interested in foreign languages and convinced of the efficacy and necessity of immersion programs in the acquisition of second languages.

Montano’s current interests include the field of  literary translation from Spanish to English, English to Spanish, and French to Spanish and English. In addition, she has collaborated extensively with creative writing colleagues.  Since 2009, she has served as a Constructed Reader for the College Board in AP Spanish.

Montano has made significant contribution to the community as an advocate for Hispanics,  especially in the capacity of volunteer interpreter and translator for Red Cross Disaster Services, Catholic Social Ministries, and local hospitals.  She also served as Guardian Ad Litem of the Administrative Office of the Courts, representing the best interests of Spanish-speaking children.

She has been married for 30 years to Michael Scott Parrill, senior vice president at Branch Banking and Trust and a Barton graduate in mathematics.  They have two children: Ethan,  a 2012 Barton graduate, and Anna Jane, who studies at Tulane University in New Orleans.