Facilities
On-Campus Programming
To enhance proficiency, students may eat at the Spanish Conversation Table (la mesa de conversación), a designated area of the cafeteria where they eat lunch and converse in Spanish with faculty members or other Spanish speakers. Faculty also regularly coordinate language-related activities and social functions.
Luther's Language Learning Center, which houses a large selection of audio, video, and digital foreign language materials, enables those studying Spanish to develop language skills on an individual basis. The center provides access to the materials above, to Macintosh computers for use by language students and to workstations for audio and video editing. The center is open approximately 60 hours per week to allow students ample time to expand and refine their skills.
An important resource for language and cultural exchanges on campus is the presence of 150 international students who come to Luther from more than 40 nations around the globe. As classmates and friends, these students add much to the social and cultural diversity enjoyed by the Luther community. Spanish-speaking students have come from Mexico, Peru, Chile, El Salvador, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic.
Enlaces , the Luther College Spanish Club, is a student organization that sponsors activities on campus that promote the study of Hispanic cultures.
Off-Campus Opportunities
All language majors and minors and others who intend to use their Spanish skills for professional purposes are required to have a language immersion experience. For majors, this may be done with at least twelve weeks of academic study abroad in a country where Spanish is an official language. For minors, the immersion experience may be satisfied through a January-Term Spanish course in Spain or Latin America. Those intending to teach, whether majors or minors, must complete at least twelve weeks of academic study in Spain or Latin America.
For most students, the study abroad experience occurs during their junior year, and Luther approves a variety of international programs. Our students have participated in programs in Madrid, Salamanca, Valencia, Toledo, Granada, and Santander, Spain. In Latin America, Luther students have studied in Valparaíso, Chile; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Quito and Cuenca, Ecuador; San José, Costa Rica; and Guanajuato, Puebla, and Mexico City, Mexico. Scholarships are available for Spanish majors who complete a semester or more abroad in Spain or Latin America. In spring 2009 Luther will launch its own semester-long study abroad program for students of Spanish in Montevideo, Uruguay.
Besides the one- and two-semester programs, there are numerous study-abroad opportunities during January Term and summer. Luther Spanish faculty members direct January-Term courses in Spanish-speaking countries, including Spain, Mexico, Ecuador, Perú, Argentina, and the Dominican Republic.
In Decorah and the surrounding area, advanced students of Spanish serve as tutors and instructors in English-as-a-second-language classes as well as interpreters at the local Free Clinic.