A native of Massachusetts, Dr. Cummins received her B.A. cum laude from Smith College in 1970. She had a major in French and obtained Massachusetts teacher certification in French, Spanish, English, and Social Studies. In 1971 she received an M.A. in French from the University of Rochester, with concentrations in medieval literature and nineteenth- century literature, and she completed a minor field in Spanish peninsular literature. She went on to the University of North Carolina, where she completed a Ph.D. in Medieval French Literature. She won the 1974 Holmes prize for her dissertation in medieval studies, a dissertation that was revised and published by the University of North Carolina in 1976. She had a minor in Spanish peninsular literature.

While an undergraduate, Dr. Cummins spent her junior year in the Smith Junior Year in Paris program, and while a graduate student she took graduate course work at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. After completing her Ph.D. in 1974, she participated in the Bryn Mawr summer program in Spain. Since obtaining her degrees, Dr. Cummins did post-doctoral work in medieval music with the assistance of a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship (1976-77) and she participated in Harvard’s Institute for Educational Management (1994).

Dr. Cummins has published extensively in the areas of business French, medieval literature, and foreign language pedagogy. Her textbook Commercial French (1982) was the first American textbook in this recently created field within French civilization. She was among the first to prepare Americans for international exams of the Paris Chamber of Commerce, beginning in the mid-1970s, and her text has been referred to as a classic in reviews of later books. During the 1990s she chaired the American Association of Teachers of French Commission on French for Business, and she published Issues and Methods in French for Business and Economic Purposes (1995). Her current research focuses on France and the European Union and the changes required while France as a nation evolves as part of a supranational entity.

Early in her career, Dr. Cummins focused much of her research on French medieval literature. As a medievalist Dr. Cummins served as an officer within the International Courtly Literature Society, and during her presidency of the Southeastern Medieval Association, she published the first volume of Literary and Historical Perspectives of the Middle Ages (1982) with Charles Connell and Patrick Conner.

Dr. Cummins has had a lifelong interest in foreign language pedagogy. She is a certified teacher, and during her six-year tenure as a national vice president for the American Association of Teachers of French (1986-91), she chaired the AATF Commission on Pedagogy and spearheaded efforts to integrate technology and teaching by launching a new Commission on Telematics. She also served as editor-in-chief of Foreign Language Annals, journal of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, from 1983-85. She published work on school-college articulation and promoted proficiency goals at all levels of language teaching. During her years in Arizona, she worked with the Arizona Foreign Language Association and local education agencies to obtain grant funds for both weekend and summer workshops for high school teachers. These grants not only provided teacher stipends and brought in French experts, but they promoted school-college articulation that crossed state lines. Dr. Cummins’ article in French Review on the Personalized System of Instruction (PSI) teaching method won a Gilbert Chinard prize (1981) awarded by the Institut Français de Washington.

While she is best known as one of the founders of the field of French for business, during the 1970s and early 1980s Dr. Cummins was also recognized for her work on medieval words and music, and her work in that field was honored by the Medieval Academy of America when she was invited to present her work at the annual meeting as a result of the Academy's

1977 Competition for Young Scholars. Dr. Cummins is the recipient of over 20 institutional and individual grants, going across all three areas of her research.

Over a 30-year period Dr. Cummins has taught at six institutions. She began as a graduate student at the University of North Carolina (1971-72), then taught all levels of French language and literature at Lafayette College while finishing her dissertation (Spring 1973-Spring 1974). After completing her dissertation, she accepted her first tenure-track job at West Virginia University, where she taught first as an assistant professor (1974-79), then as an associate professor (1979-83), and then as a full professor (1983-84). In addition to teaching all levels of French language and literature, she taught in the Humanities Program, served as an associate coordinator of the Honors Program, and eventually worked as an assistant dean in the Graduate School. From 1984-89, Dr. Cummins served as Professor of French and Chairman of the Department of Modern Languages at Northern Arizona University. She then went on to serve as Professor of French and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at SUNY College at Buffalo (1989-95) and later as Professor of French and Dean of the