Dr. Evans and The Department of Global Languages and Cultures

Photo courtesy of Melinda Skinner

Amidst changes within the department, the Global Languages Department is dedicated to providing students with an enriching experience.

The Department of Global Languages and Cultures  at SUNY Geneseo has recently redesigned their program and its offerings. Dr. Beverly Evans, Department Chair & Distinguished Teaching Professor of French, offered some valuable insight into these changes.

SUNY Geneseo currently offers a major in Global Languages and Cultures, which can be pursued independently or in alignment with the Education Department. Concentrations in French and Spanish are also offered for Elementary Education majors. Presently, European Studies, French, German, and Spanish are all being offered as minors. Students also have the opportunity to take classes in Chinese, Japanese, and Latin.

Languages such as Russian, Arabic, and Italian have had to be cut from the offered languages due to staffing issues. The department was mandated to cut the adjunct (part-time) employee population by half last spring in response to budgetary considerations and enrollment, which unfortunately led to this decline in course offerings. There are only six full-time professors currently in the department.

Regardless of these challenges, Dr. Evans and her colleagues are positive about the future of the department because the redesigned major now allows students a lot more flexibility. With many SUNY schools losing components of their language departments, SUNY Geneseo’s program has a strong future.

As student enrollment has faced a deficit, so have the class sizes for the languages. With fewer students interested in the languages, this limits what classes the department can offer due to administrative guidelines on class size requirements that apply to all departments.

Many high schools are not as rigorous in their language offerings and requirements as they used to be, which affects student interest at the college level. Dr. Evans points out that “the Regents exams for German, Hebrew, and Latin were eliminated in 2010. The same thing happened to French, Italian, and Spanish in 2011. The impact of this decision can be seen clearly in the number of students who have pursued a German minor. In 2015-16, SUNY Geneseo had 14 students with a minor in German; more recently, there have been only three or four.” She cautions that this is a reflection of the alarming situation nationwide for all languages.

Any experience with languages and cultures will benefit students when entering their chosen profession. According to Dr. Evans, over 50 percent of SUNY Geneseo's FullBright Awards are students who studied languages at the college. The FullBright U.S. Student Program is a very prestigious program which gives out scholarships and fellowships to students to do advanced research, graduate study abroad, and teach abroad. In the 2025-2026 academic year, five students from Geneseo won awards. The SUNY Geneseo website states, “In 2025—for the seventh time in eight years—SUNY Geneseo was named a Top Producer of Fulbright U.S. Student Awards.” Out of the four 2025-2026 winners, two were Spanish majors.  

The Department of Global Languages and Cultures also is associated with four different honor societies: French, German, Spanish, and Foreign Languages. Dr. Evans is the faculty advisor for the French Honor Society, Pi Delta Phi, whose national office has been located at SUNY Geneseo since 2011.

Students are also encouraged to participate in one of the many study abroad opportunities offered each semester in Europe, Africa, and Latin America. Studying abroad is a beneficial experience for all students, but especially those wanting to become immersed in culture and language. Dr. Evans adds, “All full-time and part-time faculty [who take part in these trips] have spent many years living abroad and are committed to advising students.”

Overall, Dr. Evans emphasizes that the Department of Global Languages and Cultures faculty take pride in forming strong bonds with both majors and non-majors, and in taking a personal interest in their success. It is clear that the department is dedicated to creating a program that is adaptive to individual students’ needs, and they advise students that garnering knowledge of any language or culture is beneficial to any profession.