About

We provide Western students the skills to learn firsthand about major world societies. The department believes that the best way to understand a culture directly is through its language. The modern languages offered in the department – Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Russian and Spanish – are spoken natively by nearly two billion people. Latin and Classical Greek provide students the tools to study directly written works that form the foundation of Western civilization. In keeping with the aim of providing the skills needed to learn about a culture, the department trains in the areas of language structure anditerary analysis. Language structure is taught both holistically and analytically.

Impact

Your gift to the Department of Modern and Classical Languages this year will fund student-faculty projects and initiatives, guest speakers, student travel to conferences, career networking opportunities, events highlighting the different languages and cultures in the department, and most importantly, scholarships.

Scholarships

We have a number of scholarships named in honor of beloved Faculty, Alumni and Supporters. You can choose to support anyone of these named scholarships, including a new scholarship for spanish and/or linguistics majors we are starting in honor of Shaw Gynan and his retirement from Western. 

We also have matching funds available for the first $20,000 in gifts made to the Ingrid Stahlbrand Kassler Memorial Scholarship, established in honor of beloved German professor Ingrid Kassler.