The Spanish Department strives to prepare students to participate actively in today s global world, where Spanish is a major language spoken by over 500 million speakers worldwide. Our program is designed to dually meet the needs of students who are learning Spanish as a second language as well as those students who are bilingual heritage learners. The language program fosters communicative, proficiency-oriented learning while also providing students with ample opportunities to better understand the diversity of cultures that make up the Spanish-speaking world.