Herzlich Willkommen! German instruction has a long tradition at Franklin & Marshall College. Founded in 1787 in the heart of Pennsylvania German country, the college offered instruction in both German and English for the following decades and was the first bilingual college in the country.

The current faculty is continuing this long-standing spirit of innovation with extraordinary success. As a result of a restructuring of the curriculum in 2009, our focus shifted to developing students’ German linguistic and cross-cultural competencies through a literacies-based curriculum. In the German curriculum at F&M, cultural themes and authentic texts – print, visual, and audiovisual – take center stage at every level, and every course counts toward a major or minor. Our departmental approach to teaching and learning German has become a model for many others, and our students have gone on to win fellowships, enter prestigious graduate programs, and embark on successful careers.

In the fall of 2019, the Franklin & Marshall College German program was named a “German Center of Excellence” by the American Association of Teachers of German (AATG). The AATG German Centers of Excellence program identifies and honors excellence at all levels of instruction K-16. The designation is presented to a well-established and growing German program with strong support from the administration, colleagues, alumni, and students.