Honors Program in Foreign Languages

Phone:

812.855.7957

Email:

ldishong@indiana.edu

A resident of Bloomington for more than 25 years, Loni attended Indiana University Bloomington and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Spanish, with a minor in French, as well as a Master’s degree in Language Education. She was a 1992-93 participant in the IU Office of Overseas Study year abroad in Madrid, Spain. This experience helped to shape her career path and inspired her to foster further connections with Spanish-speaking people and communities.

After earning her teaching certification, Loni taught Spanish for Brown County Middle and High Schools, where her enthusiasm for teaching continued to grow.  In 2005, she started a business in Bloomington that offered Spanish classes and summer camps for local preschool and elementary children. This business eventually developed into a language instruction studio, where various instructors offered interactive afterschool and weekend classes in Spanish, Russian, German, and French to children and teens. Throughout her career, Loni has focused on international education and cross-cultural initiatives, including the Burma Youth Leadership Program through the IU Office of International Development, which she helped to launch in 2014. 

Loni values this opportunity to direct IUHPFL and enjoys working with the program’s staff on the IU Bloomington Campus and abroad, as well as high school teachers and educators throughout the state of Indiana.  For her, it is incredibly rewarding to see how IUHPFL opens up a world of possibilities for Indiana high school language learners and encourages them to accomplish more than they imagined possible.