We hope that all students will take advantage of the opportunity to study a modern or classical language at F&M. Competency in a foreign language helps students develop an informed and thoughtful awareness of language as a system and facilitates their exploration of other cultural worlds.
For some students this may mean continuing with a language that they have been studying in high school, and for others it may be the opportunity to start a new language. In all cases, as you contemplate your opportunities for language study, choose a language that complements your personal and academic goals.
Explore Other Languages and Cultures
Things You Should Know
Language Fellowship Opportunities
Diversity and Inclusivity in Language Studies
The Departments of Classics, French and Francophone Studies, German and Russian, Italian, and Spanish and Linguistics, and the Programs in Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, and Japanese strongly support the College’s efforts to encourage diversity and inclusiveness on campus.
The languages have always had dialogue, inclusivity, and cross-cultural understanding as part of their mission, and our faculty contribute to this climate of inclusivity on campus in unique ways.
Our faculty are a diverse mosaic of cultural, national, and ethnic origins, and of linguistic, religious, and sexual identities.
Our language pedagogy encourages meaningful communication among individuals with very different life experiences.
We partner with programs such as International Studies, Africana Studies, Comparative Literary Studies, Judaic Studies, and Women’s and Gender and Sexuality Studies, offering courses that challenge the idea of fixed identities.
The events and initiatives we bring to campus help create a spirit of dialogue and inclusiveness. Just a few examples are the Spanish Department's Spanglish celebration and their several CBL initiatives and partnerships and our fundraiser for refugee resettlement agencies in Lancaster; the upcoming visit by Algerian-Italian writer Amara Lakhous, co-sponsored by Italian, Africana Studies, Arabic, and French; the annual French- and Spanish-language film festivals, the Spring 2015 World Cup soccer tournament, or the multilingual readings of Homer's Iliad and Cervantes' Don Quixote in Fall 2015.
We also recognize the need to always further our efforts. There remains work to be done, not only in our individual departments but also across the campus and in the larger Lancaster community. The language departments will continue to explore ways to foster diversity and inclusiveness in all aspects of our work, as teachers, as colleagues, and as citizens of our increasingly interconnected and pluralistic world.