Patricia Rush has over 30 years of teaching experience in Spanish, the last 15 at Ventura College where she is a Spanish instructor and former Department Chair.  Her BA and MA degrees in Spanish are from California State University, Los Angeles.  She has traveled extensively throughout the Spanish-speaking world, focusing on Spain, Mexico, Costa Rica and Cuba, and has directed International Studies programs.

She was a coauthor on Mosaicos, 2E, Trato hecho, 2E, Spanish for Health Care and Spanish for Business.  She was awarded a LLAMA grant (Language Learning and Multimedia Applications) from IBM for the use of technology in language instruction.  In 2000 she was selected “Teacher of the Year” by the EOPS program.  She directed the Migrant Education Program in the Alhambra School District as well as the Gifted and Talented Education Program, and has served as Dean of Students and Vice Principal in charge of Curriculum.  Her administrative internship was in Vocational Education, where she developed course outlines for Spanish for Medical Personnel, Law Enforcement, Social Services, and the Workplace; she possesses a TESOL certificate for instruction in English as a Second Language.  Her various presentations on language methodology at ACTFL and CLTA (California Language Teachers' Association) have been well received. 

Patricia Houston has been a Dean, and Department Chair of Languages at Pima Community College in Tucson, Arizona. She holds a Bachelors degree from Syracuse University and a Masters from the Universidad de Las Americas in Mexico. In addition to Spanish language instruction in academic and business settings, she has been a corporate trainer for private industry and the government. Long interested in applied language studies, she was a founder of the Pima College Translation Studies Program and coauthored several language textbooks, including the Spanish At Work series. During her career as an instructor, Patricia has won a variety of teaching awards on local and national levels.