A Florence native and Benedictine College associate professor has been named World Language Teacher of the Year.

Julie Sellers won the award, which recognizes an outstanding foreign language educator, from the Kansas World Language Association. She specializes in adult second language acquisition and Latin American pop culture, is a certified court interpreter, and has published three books on Dominican music and identity.

Sellers will represent Kansas at the Central States Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages in March 2019.