Commitment to Teaching

Our Department has a strong commitment to teaching excellence at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, and is proud of its award-winning team of teachers, most of whom have either been recipients of the USSU Teaching Excellence Award or have been nominated for it numerous times. Our faculty members routinely receive excellent student evaluations and are frequently cited for demonstrating a genuine concern and interest in the academic success of their students. Our professors have a reputation for fostering a strong and personable sense of academic community and belonging through small senior classes. They are known for walking the extra mile in order to ensure that their students are exposed to the full scope of intellectually rewarding facets of academic life. Faculty prepare students for participation in local, national and international scholarly conferences and organize academic, cultural and language student activities beyond the classroom such as conferences showcasing invited speakers and student research, theatrical productions, community theater outings, student talent and variety shows, potluck dinners, language retreats, discussion groups, film nights or international dance events. Additional cultural activities are organized by language student groups such as Le Cercle français.

Our faculty members are committed to providing the most comprehensive education possible in the languages we teach and their associated cultural and literary areas of study. We are equally engaged in working with students to promote student language-related extra-curricular activities both within the university and beyond it in the wider local languages communities.