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.

Membership in the SUGP-SIG is possible for any member of ACTFL, simply by checking off the box for the SUGP-SIG on the ACTFL membership form. To join ACTFL and the SUGP-SIG, enroll on their homepage at http://www.actfl.org.