The sequence of undergraduate programs offered by the Department of Spanish and Portuguese is designed to lead from the acquisition of competence in written and spoken Spanish or Portuguese, through an acquaintance with the structure and history of one or both of these languages and a critical understanding of the development and achievements of their literatures in the Old World and in the New, to training in advanced study and independent research. The department s policy is to maintain a balanced strength between language and literature and between Peninsular and Latin American facets of a unified field.