Class of 2004
Sister Eugena Poulin, RSM, is a part-time professor of French at Salve Regina University in Newport. Previously, she served five years as chairperson of the Modern Languages Department. She earned her Bachelor of Education Degree at Catholic Teachers College, her Masters Degree in French Literature at Assumption College in Worcester, Certificats Cours Superieur et Perfectionnement at the Institut Catholique in Paris, and a Doctorate in Romance Languages at the University of Florida.
In addition to the twenty years she has served at Salve Regina, Sr. Eugena taught at various elementary and secondary schools throughout Rhode Island.; and also taught adult education for the federal Title I Program, and summer school for disadvantaged children for the City of Newport.
Sr. Eugena is a member of the American-French Genealogical Society, American Association of Teachers of French, the Alliance Francaise of Newport, and the American Council for Teaching Foreign Languages. She is an active and respected member of the Franco-American community, and was selected the Franco-American of the Year by the Rhode Island Heritage Commission in 1987.
She is has authored many articles for a variety of publications including the AFGS journal, Je Me Souviens. Among the AFGS articles are: Hail the Midwives; Beware the Witches, Women of Seventeenth Century New France, Nuns, Wives, Mothers and Much More: The Contributions of Women to the Economy of New France, and Crime and Seventeenth Century Women in New France. Seventeenth century women in New France have a special fascination for Sr. Poulin, and she is continuing to add to the series of articles on this topic.
Sr. Poulin was elected to the Executive Board of the French Institute in Worcester in 1998. She was a panelist at the French Institute Colloquium, and the keynote speaker at the 1998 annual meeting of Les Dames Francaises de Nouvelle Angleterre. She has received two Salve Regina Small Grants for research at the National Archives in Quebec. In 2000, she was awarded the Salve Regina University Presidential Grant for Research.
Currently, she is working with Dr. Claire Quintal on the translation and annotation of Gazette Francaise, a newspaper published in Newport in 1780-81.