Mission Statement

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A number of AATG/ACTFL members established in 1997 a Special Interest Group (SIG) to promote discussion of the issues and opportunities surrounding small undergraduate German programs at colleges and universities. The SIG founders understand "small programs" to mean German departments with no more than three full-time faculty members and which offer purely undergraduate courses. Such programs contain sufficient unique aspects (e.g., teaching a wide variety of courses, being greatly or even solely responsible for running the entire program, having considerable flexibility in structuring curriculum and greater opportunity for collaboration with colleagues outside German, developing new professional profiles that would match better the requirements of such positions) to warrant the establishment of a forum dedicated to a discussion of these characteristics.

There are several other advantages to having a SIG, the most important of which is the guarantee of two to three sessions at the annual ACTFL conference, the themes and content of which are decided solely by SIG members and officers. A further SIG benefit is the opportunity to hold one of these sessions as a breakfast/business meeting, as long as there is convention catering space available.

Since 1997 the Small Undergraduate German Programs SIG has offered three sessions at each ACTFL annual conference, covering such topics as graduate student preparation for undergraduate teaching positions, campus advocacy for German, student retention, curricular innovations and initiatives. Traditionally, SIG officers issue at the beginning of the calendar year a call for paper proposals for the ACTFL conference to be held the following November. This call is published via a listserv established for the group, to which one may subscribe.

It is hoped that this group will contribute significantly to the strengthening of German programs throughout the USA.