The Department of Romance Languages and Literatures endeavors to achieve excellence in research, teaching and public service related to the languages, literatures, and cultures of the areas and countries where French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish are spoken.  Associated languages and cultures, such as Catalan, Haitian Creole, Occitan, Romanian, or any other the faculty may determine, also fall under the departmental purview.  Research, teaching, and service are mutually enriching activities through which we achieve our shared goals.  The Department strives to maintain effective undergraduate and graduate programs of instruction whose quality is sustained by the constant intellectual and professional development of the Department's faculty, as well as by a strong commitment to service.  Consistent with UF's mission statement, research should contribute "to the international public conversation about the advancement of knowledge."

The Department believes that an essential part of a College education is the study of a foreign language, which enhances students' communication skills, providing them means of access to other cultures.  To learn another language is to acquire a different system of communication.  This process increases understanding of one's own language; facilitates comprehension of how language structures human consciousness; and increases awareness of language in interaction with other social institutions. We affirm the value of foreign languages, literature, and other cultural expressions of the past and present as significant fields in teaching and research, appreciating their role in cultural and intellectual life. Our programs help to meet the university-wide goal of encouraging students to appreciate their own and others' cultures, affording opportunities to understand how ways of knowing are produced and conditioned by a variety of cultures.

The courses offered by the Department in language, linguistics, literature, film, civilization and cultural studies enrich such related fields as Anthropology, Art History, Business, Health Sciences, History, International Relations, Journalism, Law, Linguistics, Music, Political Science, Sociology, and other languages and literatures.  With the expansion of dynamic minority populations in the U.S. and the prospect of closer and more complex relationships between the U.S. and French-, Italian-, Portuguese-, and Spanish-speaking countries around the world, such courses will increasingly have intellectual and practical value as part of the University of Florida's curricular opportunities.

We strive to maintain the quality and breadth of all our programs: beginning and intermediate language instruction, undergraduate major and minor, and graduate studies leading to the (MA and PhD).  Our activities include: (a) research and studies in language pedagogy; linguistics; literary history, criticism, and theory; film, cultural studies, and civilization;  (b) courses, programs, and training leading to BA, MA and PhD degrees; (c) sponsorship of study and research abroad; (d) fostering interdisciplinary initiatives which foreground the importance of knowing a foreign language and culture; (e) utilizing our expertise to attend to the linguistic and cultural interests of UF's Latino and Haitian-American populations; (f) internationalizing the university through invitations to well-known scholars and through faculty and student exchanges; (g) sponsorship of scholarly and cultural events which promote interest in these areas of concern.

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