Welcome to Languages, Literatures and Cultures…

…where we listen to everyone and read, write and speak in their own language!

Gendron ChairWe offer courses in American Sign Language, Arabic, Classical Greek, French, German, Italian, Latin, Mandarin Chinese, and Spanish allowing students to meet the language proficiency requirement in Arts and Sciences and other colleges. Our classes fit the new Marquette Core Curriculum at the Discovery level, ESSV 1 and 2, and for Writing Intensive requirements. In addition, our course offerings regularly include film, theater, and non-English literatures, history and culture taught in English translation.

Our academic majors and minors give a boost to any career. We offer majors in Classics, French, German, Latin American Studies, Spanish Language and Literature, and Spanish for the Professions; minors are offered in Arabic Studies (Interdisciplinary Minor), Classical Languages, Classical Studies, French, German, Italian Language and Cultural Studies, Latin American Studies, Latinx Studies, Spanish, and Spanish for the Professions

Our students come from all colleges and participate in a variety of academic programs, from Psychology to English, from Biomedical Sciences to Political Science, from Nursing to Business.Great numbers of our students study abroad.

We also encourage and support extracurricular involvement in language honorary clubs,  internships, Service Learning and related community engagement.  

There are award-winning scholars, writers and teachers among our faculty members, who work in a range of disciplines, such as Art History, Classical Studies, Virtual Reality, Critical Theory, Education, Environmental Studies, Gender Studies, Indigenous Studies, Linguistics, Oral History, Peace Studies, Poetry, Race Studies, Religion Studies, Sociolinguistics, Theater, Trauma Studies, Tourism, and many others. We publish in English and other languages.

We all know that the needs of the current global workplace require linguistic and cultural competence. A recent survey of 1,200 U.S. employers demonstrated that:

    1. 9 out of 10 U.S. employers rely on employees with language skills other than English.
    2. 56% say their foreign language demand will increase in the next 5 years.
    3. 47% state a need for language skills exclusively for the domestic market.
    4. 1 in 3 language-dependent U.S. employers report a language skills gap.
    5. 1 in 4 U.S. employers lost business due to a lack of language skills. 

(Making Languages Our Business: Addressing Foreign Language Demand Among U.S. Employers, 2019, cited https://www.leadwithlanguages.org/language-advocacy/publications/)

College is a perfect time to begin learning languages or deepen your prior knowledge. We look forward to meeting you.

Sincerely,

Dr. Sally (Sarah) Gendron, sarah.gendron@marquette.edu
Chair and Professor of French Language and Literature