Frederick Lubich
Chair, Foreign Languages & Literatures

Frederick Lubich believes he made a wise choice. The new chair of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Lubich left a prestigious position as chair of the German department and graduate director of the German Ph.D. program at Rutgers University to come to Old Dominion last fall.

He says he has been energized by the positive attitude of his colleagues in the department and the "innovative synergy" he has discovered at Old Dominion.

"All of the perceptions I had about Old Dominion have been confirmed," he said. "I've never taught at a university with so much energy and creativity."

Lubich comes to the university with an impressive set of credentials. Before joining the Rutgers faculty in 1993, he had taught at Brown, Columbia and Haverford/Bryn Mawr.

A native of Germany, Lubich graduated from the Universities of Stuttgart, Newcastle, Heidelberg. He was awarded a scholarship to Cornell University, where he received a master's degree in American studies, and went on to earn his doctorate in German at the University of California-Santa Barbara.

At Rutgers, Lubich says he grew increasingly frustrated by the fact that more students weren't getting good positions after completing the Ph.D. program.

"What attracted me to the undergraduate program at Old Dominion was the marketability for graduates with a bachelor's who had a combination of a major, for example, in engineering with a minor in a foreign language," he said. "These students get good job offers with excellent salaries. It is rewarding to be a part of this."

Lubich says the trend in his field is for more basic and broad training in the liberal arts disciplines. "The markets ask for this, and I think specialization comes later in one's profession," he said.

Lubich was also attracted to Old Dominion because of the university's strong push toward internationalization of the curricula. "The trend today is to merge languages in the same department. This gives us the ability to share with our colleagues rather than antagonize one another," he said. "After all, Germans and Russians can be friends again."

Another trend over the last 10 to 15 years has been the development of cultural studies in foreign language departments. "This interdisciplinary and cross-cultural approach finds a wonderful home in the foreign language department," Lubich affirmed. In l996, Old Dominion made a change in the traditional bachelor's program to offer a B.A. in foreign languages with a concentration in a particular language. Lubich views this as the first step in helping make students more marketable.

In the last two years, the department has hired six new faculty members, including Lubich, and is currently conducting three job searches. Last semester, the department created 21 new courses. And, in the last year, new minors were approved in Japanese, Latin American and European studies. Lubich is currently working to expand the offerings of Chinese and Arabic and negotiate more exchange sites in Europe in conjunction with Bowling Green State University.

In March, the department will offer a unique symposium titled "The Foreign in Foreign Languages," which will explore the growing incorporation of minority cultures within majority cultures, such as the Afro-Hispanic element in Latin America or the Korean culture in Japan. Four guest speakers from Cornell, the University of Virginia and Bryn Mawr will join Old Dominion faculty as speakers for the symposium. Karen Gould, dean of the College of Arts and Letters, will also speak about the French element in Canadian culture. "There is an incredible transformation taking place here. We have a creative and exceptionally harmonious faculty here," Lubich said. "The combination of this dynamic group of individuals, along with the university's institutional youth and geographic location, puts Old Dominion in a great place to grow and become the model of an international university in the 21st century."

- Beth Lewis