New name reflects department’s breadth of expertise

To better acknowledge the breadth of faculty expertise, UW–Madison’s Department of South Asian Studies, Languages and Literature has changed its name to the Department of Languages and Cultures of Asia. The change is effective immediately.

According to Robert Bickner, departmental chair, the new name will benefit the campus as well as reflect faculty specialties.

“While we will continue to offer the same number and pattern of degree programs, we will be able to offer our students more choices now in what languages they can take to fulfill the degree requirements,” Bickner says. “For many years we have offered the languages of southeast and central Asia – Turkish, Thai, Indonesian and Tagalog, which is spoken in the Philippines. Renaming our department allows the professors who teach those courses to participate more fully in the intellectual life of the campus, and should attract more students.”

The department currently has 10 undergraduate majors and 60 graduate students. There are 15 permanent faculty members. The department does not cover subject areas in East Asia, which will remain in the UW–Madison Department of East Asian Languages and Literature.