Message from the Chair

Welcome to the Department of Modern Languages & Literature. We are proud to offer majors in Chinese, French, and Spanish, and beginning courses in Japanese. Like most liberal arts colleges, we do not offer a large array of languages, but for the ones we do, our goal is excellence through high expectations and individual attention to our students. Like our students, our faculty are diverse in background, travels, interests, and experiences. We are committed to research, teaching and service, and count significant publications and teaching awards among us.

Students in modern languages often travel the world to perfect their language skills. This becomes the foundation students use to explore the world and develop a sense of cultural awareness and global citizenship—a foundation for communication through language, literature, and culture that is part of building the critical-thinking skills our students will carry with them the rest of their lives. We are especially pleased with the success of our alumni who have gone on to teach, to pursue graduate school, to work in the Peace Corps, for leading corporations, for non-profits, and a multitude of other positions. Indeed, what denotes our success is the community of current and former students who have flourished using skills we helped them develop.

Andy Wallis
Department Chair