History
Foreign Languages and teacher certification programs have been offered at UW-Stevens Point since
the institution was founded in 1894. Until the 1950s the offerings were limited to four
traditional European languages: French, German, Latin and Spanish. During the 1950s
and 1960s the course offerings expanded to include majors and minors in French,
German and Spanish as well as a minor in Russian. The department became the
Department of Foreign Languages and Comparative Literature in 1972 when a minor in
Comparative Literature was established. In 1982 the department received consent to
expand its offerings by adding language majors with concentrations in cultural studies
which allowed students with a primary interest in foreign cultures to take 21 credits of
coursework within a language and an additional 9 credits of coursework (outside the
department) that pertained to their respective culture (i.e. a Latin American History
course, French film and culture or Habsburg History). Since the millennium the
department has also offered a four course sequence in Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and
Russian under the auspices of the UW-System Collaborative Language Program. The
department sends Chinese to UW-Oshkosh and UW-River Falls and receives in return
Arabic from UW-Whitewater, Japanese from UW-Oshkosh and Russian from UW-LaCrosse.