Professor Silveira was born in Santiago de Cuba, studied at Colegio Juan Bautista Sagarra, a private military school, the Instituto Santiago, and the Universidad de La Habana School of Law.

From 1955 to 1957, Silveira practiced law at Valentin Arenas’ Law Office in Havana, and from February 18, 1957, at the Legal Department of Banco de Fomento Agricola e Industrial de Cuba (BANFAIC) (both legal departments for the Agricultural and Industrial Divisions), until his departure into exile on February 1, 1961.

After some time out of professional activities, he had to “search” for food to feed his family, he started teaching at the Brooklyn Diocesan Spanish Institute, teaching priests and nuns working with Spanish speaking people, in and outside the United States. After a while, in 1965, he went to teach at Virginia State College (today Virginia State University) in Petersburg, Virginia. From there, in the Fall of 1967, he went back to graduate school at The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where he graduated with a Masters and a Ph. D. degrees in Romance Languages. While at UNC he taught two courses per semester, first as a Part-Time Instructor, and later as a Teaching Assistant. In 1970, he moved to Hampden-Sydney College where he retired as a full-time professor in 1995. At Hampden-Sydney he has taught service and upper-level courses in Spanish, and has been twice the Chairman of the Modern Languages Department.

While a full-time teacher at Hampden-Sydney, Jorge received the John Peter Mettauer Research Award in 1981 and 1988.; the Mednick Research Award in 1982 and 1987; and the Virginia Distinguished Foreign Language Teacher Award in 1985. Jorge Silveira has published three books and a study guide and has read papers at national and international professional meetings. He is a member of the Asociacion Internacional de Hispanistas, founding member of the Cervantes Society of America, life member of Phi Sigma Iota (for which he served two years as Editor and for one year Associate Editor for its magazine, The Forum. He is founder of the College FM Radio Station, and trustee for the 220 MHz amateur radio station on campus.

Silveira is interested in Medieval Studies as well as Peninsular Golden Age Novel and Theater. He was a student of Urban Tigner Holmes, Sterling Aubrey Stoudemire, Juan Bautista Avalle-Arce, Lawrence A. Sharpe, Alva V. Ebersole, and Andre Michalski. He studied Romance Philology under Holmes and Sharpe. With professors Avalle-Arce and Michalski, he studied Medieval literature. Under Stoudemire he studied Golden Age novel, and theater of the XIX Century; with professor Ebersole Golden Age theater. Silveira also has studied at length the “Romancero”, under professor Augustin Maissen, and in 1987 published a book on Cervantes’ use of “romances” in the elaboration of the Quijote:

He has also studied “romances” in the Caribbean: Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Dominican Republic, under the direction of Professor Maria Antonia Salgado.

Silveira has a great interest in military history, and has a modest but valuable collection in the field.

The model railroad is part of Jorge’s entertainments. He has built a modest layout--with the invaluable help of his friends, Charles Henry Branch, N4VFY (N&W RY) and the late Gene Banton, N4WBK, modeled after one of the largest roadnames in the history of the United States railroads, Norfolk & Western. RY. During the building stage, Jorge was the “Coca-Cola man,” mixed glue, and took measurements to guarantee exactness. Without Charlie and Gene, there would not be any layout worth anything.

All this started when Jorge, inspired by one of his colleagues and model railroading enthusiast, Dr. Tully Turney, was taken for a tour at a hobby store in Lynchburg. A small layout was set-up at his office in Bagby Hall, where he also had a complete amateur radio station, a Swan 700cx. To his knowledge, the amateur radio contacts conducted there, were the first ever made from any of the college’s academic buildings. One of the Cabell brothers--well known alumnus of Hampden-Sydney--did have radio communications from a dormitory building many, many, years ago, but never before from an academic building. At any rate, Charlie and Gene had the idea of moving his layout to where it is now, at home, at the garage, displacing his Mercedes-Benz. In a few weeks, his colleagues in ham radio had developed a fine train layout, and it was changed from B&O to a full-fledged Norfolk & Western. Charlie is a retired engineer for N&W. He took upon himself to decorate diesel engines and cabooses, and build a repair train to its real form. Jorge will be forever grateful to his friends for making him build this fantasy world of model railroading. Professor Silveira is a member of the National Model Railroad Association.

Professor Silveira, has been an amateur radio operator for half a century. He holds the Amateur Extra Class with a personalized callsign, W4JAS. Has worked over 150 countries in short wave bands, has done charitable international work through ham radio, including the world wide “Operacion Sonia,” which brought a Spanish girl suffering Ewing’s Sarcoma to be treated at the Medical College of Virginia, in 1980.

Search QRZ for W4JAS

The province of Huelva honored Dr. Silveira with a banquet attended by many amateur operator participants of the “Operacion Sonia,” and the then-governor of Huelva, Spain. After retirement, now a Professor Emeritus of Modern Languages at Hampden-Sydney College, he reduced his activities as an amateur radio operator, and concentrates on his new hobby, “the computer; a great tool for the academic world.” Professor Silveira has been a leader in the amateur radio emergency system, and has been Emergency Coordinator for Prince Edward County, and later the District Emergency Coordinator, District #11, for the State of Virginia, when he took it over from the late David Norden, AA4VP, who was also a model railroad enthusiast. At the present time Jorge Silveira is a certified Volunteer Examiner for the American Radio Relay League - VEC for Amateur Radio Licensing until the year 2000.
 

This hobby, for Jorge, is--besides an entertainment--one of the best instruments that a language teacher could use to perfect language understanding, and to acquire aspects of the languages’ daily usages, without leaving his radio room. Constant communication with the world of ham radio, exposes a person interested in languages to the most current uses of the language in any given country. Jorge Silveira was honored in 1988 with the Southside Amateur Radio Association’s “Ham of the year award” for his outstanding support and enthusiasm for Amateur Radio. His old callsign, WB4PEA, is shown in the picture above.

In the last seventeen years or so, computers have become very handy in the professional life of the academic community. The introduction of Apple’s Macintosh personal computer, by all means, has produced a great impact on the publishing members of the teaching profession, with all the advantages imaginable. Professor Silveira, who was already involved in computer use, since by that time he had published his first book, the largest academic publication produced using the old IBM 1130 main frame at Hampden-Sydney, his Indice de onomasticos y toponimicos contenidos en el Romancero general de Agustin Duran (Valencia: Albatros Hispanofila Ediciones, 1980). In that book professor Silveira had the invaluable cooperation of the then director of computing, Dr. Ray A. Gaskins and his assistant, Karen Harris Senger, now Karen Harris Fowler. Professor Gaskins is now Professor Emeritus of Mathematics and Computer Science, and Karen Fowler is Data Center Manager of the J. B. Fuqua Computing Center. Without their help in programming, and constant assistance, that project would not come to its successful completion. Also, with the computer, this time the Apple Macintosh, professor Silveira and his colleague, Dr. Alan Ford Farrell, now Acting Dean of the Faculty at Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, Virginia, published a translation of Fernando Lazaro Carreter and Evaristo Correa Calderon’s Como se comenta un texto literario under the title Writing about literary texts. Madrid: Editorial Catedra, 1986.

Through his early contact with computers, whether he used a terminal of the main frame from home, or used an Apple IIe, and later on almost every model of the Macintosh line, professor Silveira has developed a new and profound interest in personal computers, and this now his main time consuming hobby, since--with time passing--life has changed and other interests have taken possession of his time. Mainly because of his association with the college, now in a part-time basis, he depends very much on his Macintosh PowerPC 9600/200 MP for the elaboration of his class preparations. As always, professor Silveira likes challenges, as he did before with ham radio equipment, and experiments in new technology using his Newton 2000 for e-mail, fax, and notes related to his busy, but enjoyable life. He has four Macintoshes, and a Dell Dimension M200a. The latter is the product of his technological curiosity; the Macintosh having been the computer of his predilection. By June 12, 1997, the computer/radio room has changed considerably. One radio station, two computers, are the residents of his radio/computer desk. The computer system includes an Apple Color OneScanner 1200/30.

Professor Silveira enjoys pistol and rifle target shooting. He is pretty good in the 25 yards shooting with 40 caliber pistol, Sig-Sauer and HK 9 millimeter semi auto. He has experience with several other guns, including Thompson 45 machine-gun, Colt Python and Ruger 357 Magnum revolvers, and the Browning 7 millimeter magnum automatic rifle (BAR), to mention only a few.

Jorge, and his wife, June, have four children and seven grandchildren.

Professor Silveira wants to dedicate this Web Page to his past and present students, 1965-1998, with special homage to Nils Green.

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