The mission of the Department of Germanic, Slavic, and Asian Languages is threefold: to teach, to generate new knowledge in our fields, and to provide service to the citizens of Tennessee in the scope of our expertise.
Language is the medium by which every fact, opinion, and belief is conveyed. Each language is a unique system for communicating such information. Each language gives rise to a distinct culture, a pattern of sentiments, ideals, and assumptions which molds the way we think and act. One powerful medium of culture is literature, which both shapes the culture and reflects it from the point of view of a sensitive and thoughtful observer.
The Department of Germanic, Slavic, and Asian Languages seeks to mediate between different worlds, the one of the English language and American culture and the ones that are revealed by the languages we teach. We do this by offering beginning classes for general education for a broad spectrum of undergraduates as well as higher level classes for students seeking degrees in our special fields. We offer a major in Chinese or Japanese when combined with Asian Studies or World Business, a B.A. in German or Russian, an M.A. in German, and a Ph.D. in Modern Foreign Languages, in which the major field may be German and the minor field may be Russian.
We have established curricula with high academic standards that are flexible enough to meet a great variety of demands for our students. Undergraduates students outside our field receive sound basic and intermediate language instruction which brings awareness of the cultural areas we represent and provides the basis for possible further language learning. Graduates of our program have distinguished themselves in the fields of German studies, in Russian studies, in Asian studies, in business, in government service, in teaching, and other professions. They have done so, we believe, with a better knowledge of the wider world that the knowledge of German, Russian, Chinese, and Japanese brings. In German, our undergraduate and graduate teaching missions are closely intertwined since a significant part of early language instruction is done by graduate teaching assistants. We seek to train graduate students to be good teachers of beginning language while they learn how to become advanced scholars in literature and linguistics.
Our role in generating new knowledge derives from the mission of The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, the principal research university and land grant university of the state of Tennessee. Advanced academic work in any field requires research into this field, which generates new knowledge. We present our research findings at regional, national, and international professional conferences and disseminate them in respected professional journals in the U.S. and abroad and in our own classrooms, where they bring fresh and exciting insights to our students and inspire their professional growth and development. This work is highly specialized and, given the breadth of our interests, highly diverse. We strive for excellence in our teaching and research and work to foster in our graduate students the role of teacher-scholar to which they aspire. Graduates of our programs have achieved professional recognition, and we work with them as apprentice scholars and future professional colleagues.
In keeping with the identity of the University of Tennessee as a land-grant institution, the department has a proud tradition of commitment to the mission of public service. We regard this mission as co-equal with those of teaching and research. We fulfill this obligation in a variety of ways, including 1) active membership in professional organizations at the local, regional, state and higher levels, 2) service in these organizations, 3) editing, publishing or supporting newsletters and journals, and 4) in other official capacities. One special obligation is to support the K-12 teachers and students of German, Russian, Chinese, or Japanese in Tennessee, who often work in isolation.