Program Sustainability Through Interdisciplinary Networking: On Connecting Foreign Language Programs with Sustainability Studies and Other Fields

Interdisciplinarity poses fundamental challenges to the ways in which even the most progressive departments conceive of their educational mission with respect to integrated language and culture learning. This essay outlines the structure for redesigning the undergraduate major as a “tools-based” curriculum that concentrates work in three core areas: skill in language and literacy, knowledge of context and media, and development of critical literacy and global understanding. It advocates a complex approach to fostering translingual and transcultural competence and describes the development of course offerings in the environmental humanities as an example. By recognizing the emerging mosaic structure of undergraduate education and embracing opportunities to collaborate with other disciplines, foreign language departments can engage in productive curriculum reform.