In Spring 1986, just after moving to Forest Grove to become a professor of German at è, Lorely French and her husband, James Draznin, sat on a grassy hill on the Forest Grove Campus where the Taylor-Meade Performing Arts Center now stands, pondering their decision.
They took in the scent of the nearby rose garden and the sights of the blooming Northwest spring and of Forest Grove, then a town of just under 12,000 people. They had fallen in love with “The Grove,” and it did not take long for French and Draznin to decide that it was where they wanted to be.
“It was the whole community, sitting in the sun and looking at it,” French recalls. “Coming right from graduate school, I was looking at different places. I could have been in upstate New York. I could have been in Colorado. I could have been anywhere, but Oregon was a real gem.”
Pacific was where French’s career began and it is where it will end. The Distinguished University Professor of German retires this spring after an impressive 39-year career at the university.
French’s passion for her adopted hometown is topped only by her lifelong passion for languages, culture and international experiences. It was ingrained in her growing up in Vermont, close to the French-speaking Canadian province of Québec. It was where, ironically, French spent six years of school learning French before enrolling in undergraduate studies at Montreal’s McGill University. She dabbled in a few languages before settling on German.
“I loved my professor. That made a difference. I studied for a summer abroad. That made a difference,” French said. “In general, the German culture really interested me too. There is the difference between the bright side of the stereotypical beer drinking culture, the fairy tales and the dark side of the Holocaust. So that was, to me, always a complexity that I wanted to explore.”
French brought that curiosity and love for German to Pacific, where classes aren’t just about grammar and word conjugation. The university’s German Club has been one of the more active student language clubs on campus, introducing many others to the culture.
The growth of the international experience for Pacific students has also been a critical part of French’s career. Upon joining the faculty, she oversaw the university’s Study Abroad program when she remembers only six students spending time overseas. Today, Pacific offers long-term study abroad experiences in 23 locations in 13 countries, along with numerous other short-term study opportunities.
French is particularly proud of the development of Pacific’s involvement in the Fulbright Program. She has co-mentored 40 Pacific students who became Fulbright Scholars, the latest being Anjolina Horzynek ’22, who spent the 2024-25 academic year studying and teaching in Austria. French also initiated the Foreign Language Teaching Assistant program at Pacific, which has brought Fulbright scholars to Pacific as teaching assistants for 31 years.
