Expanded offerings in Spanish and Japanese in the Department of World Languages and Literatures are preparing students for popular professions and to meet the demands of a globalized economy and society that is changing rapidly in the face of geopolitical and climate pressures.

A concentration in applied professional Spanish—intended to be used alongside studies of a wide range of subjects from business management to education or nursing—offers classes in Spanish for health professions and business, plus interpretation and translation. In the future, offerings could expand to include Spanish for law enforcement and legal interpretation.

The introduction of linguistic landscape—a growing field within the study of world languages and linguistics particularly in countries that are home to multiple languages—prepares advanced students to analyze and acquire a deeper understanding of some globalization issues that impact the Spanish-speaking world, such as immigration trends and trade agreements. Linguistic landscape offers on-the-ground evidence, highlighting demographic changes and the response to them by public and private entities, such as visual representation of languages, or a lack of, in public places.