Oswaldo (Ozzie) Arana, professor emeritus of foreign languages and literatures, died Nov. 24. He was 90.
Arana, who was born in Peru, joined the University in 1965 and served 25 years. In 1960, Arana and his wife, Alice, took part in a massive federal project — under the National Defense Education Act — to acquaint a generation of Americans with languages spoken largely outside the United States. Their efforts help develop the A-LM (Audio-Lingual Materials) foreign language series, which brought linguistically oriented Spanish, French, German, Italian and Russian into the classrooms of junior and senior high school students. The couple authored a number of books, including “¿Qué tal?” and “Puntos de Partida.”
The educator earned his bachelor’s degree at Texas Christian University and his master’s and doctorate at the University of Colorado. He was a member of several professional organizations, including the Modern Language Association of America, the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages and the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese.
Arana is survived by his wife, Alice; children Cecilia, David and Michael; and siblings, Nelson, Jaime and Alicia.