In 2012, Dr. Agnès Belval-Ragone (1953-2020), a professor of French and Spanish at Shippensburg University (Shippensburg, PA), gathered a group of like-minded individuals who shared her vision for a partnership between her school and the community of Gros-Mangles on the island of La Gonâve, in Haiti. This was just the start of Project Gros Mangles, which has since flourished and, in her own words, is one of her greatest accomplishments.
Born May 6, 1953 in Oran, Algeria, Dr. Agnès Belval-Ragone retired in Salinas, CA after spending 13 years in Middletown, MD. A world explorer at heart, Agnès grew up in Algeria, lived in France, Spain, England, and Morocco, before settling in the United States. Her American journey took her from California to Louisiana, Texas, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, before returning to the Pacific Coast in retirement.
Dr. Agnès Belval-Ragone was an accomplished scholar and teacher of French and Spanish, who received her Master’s degree from Louisiana State University (Baton Rouge, LA), and her PhD from University of Texas at Austin (Austin, TX). She joined the Shippensburg University department of Global Languages and Cultures in 1998, which she chaired for many years and strengthened with an inspiring program. A beloved teacher, she devoted a lot of time to her students, with whom she enjoyed sharing her passion for languages. As a sociolinguist, she pursued an ambitious research agenda on issues related to languages in contact, regularly publishing articles in specialized reviews and delivering talks at conferences. Her later work had focused mostly on Haitian Creole. Right before Dr. Belval-Ragone’s health issues caused her to abruptly retire, she had been preparing to spend a year in Benin, after being awarded a
prestigious Fulbright scholarship to study the influence of the
Fongbé language on the development of Haitian Creole.
In her spare time, Dr. Belval-Ragone loved to travel, read, swim, visit museums, as well as attend theatrical performances and concerts. In her drive to make the world a fairer, better place she volunteered for a number of organizations, such as Habitat for Humanity and Head Start, and she helped Hispanic migrant workers in Pennsylvania. This urge to help those less fortunate was at the heart of Dr. Belval-Ragone’s mission as a pedagogue. She combined her devotion to teaching and her passion for helping others in organizing and leading service learning activities that connected our campus to the community at large, extending all the way to Haiti. In that regard, Project Gros Mangles is one of her greatest accomplishments: her vision, leadership and hard work over eight years contributed to the construction of a playground and a medical facility in Gros-Mangles. A beautiful tribute to her kind and generous spirit that lives on, the medical facility -- “Centre communautaire de santé Belval” -- opened in June 2020. The people of Gros-Mangles, who knew her as “Madame Agnès”, are so proud of the medical center that they just decided to name their soccer team the Belvals! With the reassurance that Dr. Belval-Ragone’s legacy will endure, we invite you to keep her contagious laughter and sunny disposition in your memories.
