Despite rapid globalization within contemporary society and the seemingly obvious need for the study of foreign languages (FL) and cultures, recruitment to undergraduate FL degrees has dwindled, graduate programs have disappeared, and institutions have restructured independent language departments into mega-departments of languages, literatures, and cultures. At the same time, the FL and humanities disciplines have engaged in “soul-searching” exercises in an effort to understand and express a renewed sense of value for the study of foreign language and culture. As a result of these kinds of societal and disciplinary movements, FL programs, along with other educational sectors, are facing the increased need to engage with peripheral forces like accountability and accreditation, to express and ensure their value through outcomes assessment, and to begin to think, innovate, and behave programmatically. Key to enacting these changes systematically and effectively is heightened awareness of the importance of program evaluation, not only as a means to demonstrate how and why FL study is a valuable pursuit in today’s world, but also as a process through which sound improvements can be made, participants can learn, and educational relevance can be sought.

Methodologies, guidelines, and frameworks for language program evaluation.
1. Evaluation Capacity Building in College Language Programs: Developing and Sustaining a Student Exit Survey Project - Kimi Kondo-Brown (University of Hawai’i at Manoa), John McE. Davis (Georgetown University), and Yukiko Watanabe (UC Berkeley).
2. The Development, Management, and Costs of a Large-Scale Foreign Language Assessment Program - Elizabeth Bernhardt and Monica Brillantes (Stanford University).
3. Student Analytics and the Longitudinal Evaluation of Language Programs - Peter Ecke & Alexander Ganz (University of Arizona).
4. Designing an Embedded Outcomes Assessment for Spanish Majors: Literary Interpretation and Analysis - Judith E. Liskin-Gasparro and Raychel Vasseur (University of Iowa).
5. Seat Time vs. Proficiency: Assessment of Language Development in Undergraduate Students - Elena Schmitt (Southern Connecticut State University).
Language program evaluation in relation to professional, institutional, and departmental goals and identities.
6. From Frameworks to Oversight: Components to Improving Foreign Language Program Efficacy - Carol Klee, Charlotte Melin, Dan Soneson, Elaine Tarone (University of Minnesota).
7. Promoting Change in “Two-tiered” Departments: An Exploratory Evaluation of Conflict and Empowerment among Language and Literature Faculty - Alessandro Zannirato (Johns Hopkins University).
8. Foreign language Course Grades as Pre-requisites and Programmatic Gatekeepers - Alan Brown (University of Kentucky).
9. Do we speak the same language?”: The iterative development of an institutionally mandated foreign language assessment program - Lindsy Myers & Nathan Lindsay (University of Missouri-Kansas City).
10. Reframing Assessment: Innovation and Accountability between the Global and the Local – Ted Cachey (Notre Dame).

Despite rapid globalization within contemporary society and the seemingly obvious need for the study of foreign languages (FL) and cultures, recruitment to undergraduate FL degrees has dwindled, graduate programs have disappeared, and institutions have restructured independent language departments into mega-departments of languages, literatures, and cultures. At the same time, the FL and humanities disciplines have engaged in “soul-searching” exercises in an effort to understand and express a renewed sense of value for the study of foreign language and culture. As a result of these kinds of societal and disciplinary movements, FL programs, along with other educational sectors, are facing the increased need to engage with peripheral forces like accountability and accreditation, to express and ensure their value through outcomes assessment, and to begin to think, innovate, and behave programmatically. Key to enacting these changes systematically and effectively is heightened awareness of the importance of program evaluation, not only as a means to demonstrate how and why FL study is a valuable pursuit in today’s world, but also as a process through which sound improvements can be made, participants can learn, and educational relevance can be sought. Key topics include the integration of professional standards, university benchmarks, departmental goals, and outcomes assessment in language program evaluation. These ideas and examples equip language program directors with the essential tools and knowledge to transform their language programs.