Studying Abroad

Students who have completed either German 251 or 252 and received at least a B- in their last German course at St. Olaf are eligible to study abroad! Students have the opportunity to study for a semester or a whole year at the University of Flensburg, the University of Konstanz, the University of Paderborn or the Humboldt University in Berlin. Each program also offers a pre-semester intensive language course that can be taken for credit. Students also can travel to Germany for a January Interim language course and for summer internships in the German work place.

Lakeside Houses, Konstanz

Deutsches Haus

The German House, located just down the hill from Buntrock Commons, provides a unique opportunity for students to further their German language abilities. Residents of the house must have completed at least German 232, be enrolled in at least one German language course per semester, and speak in German with one another. There is always at least one native German speaker living in the house. Students who do not live in the house can still participate in German House events. Each month residents put on activities like German picnics, movie nights, and holiday parties.

World Language Center (WLC)

The World Language Center at St. Olaf College has cutting-edge computer programs to enhance the student’s learning. It also has two 24-hour German-language TV news programs, German newspapers, magazines and DVDs. The German exchange students also put on a weekly “Stammtisch,” or German table, to which students bring their supper and speak in German.

Reichstag (German Parliament), Berlin

Foreign Languages Across the Curriculum (FLAC)

FLAC courses are regular courses enhanced in order to incorporate a language other than English. Typically, students taking a German FLAC course meet with their professor for an extra hour once a week in order to discuss texts and other material in German. German FLAC courses cover topics like history, theology and music. After completing two FLAC courses in the same language, the student is awarded a certificate in Applied Foreign Language Competence.

Professors:

Karl J. Fink,
Professor, Department Chair,

studied at Wartburg College, the University of Arizona and the University of Illinois. He has lived in Bonn-Bad Godesberg, where he taught as a Fulbright scholar, and in Weimar and Göttingen, where he has studied German science and literature. He sees both "as an aestheetic expression of a cultural mind that moves freely between abstract symbols and shared experiences." His favorite book is Goethe’s Faust and he teaches a seminar devoted entirely to it.

Karen Achberger,
Professor,

earned all three of her degrees at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. She has lived in Munich, Bonn, Dresden and Berlin. She is a Fulbright scholar, a published author, and the recipient of numerous awards. She especially loves cinema and teaches a course on German film. She believes that learning German is important, because “we know ourselves and our native culture only when we know something beyond ourselves… another Weltanschauung.”

La Vern Rippley,

Professor,

received his Ph.D. from Ohio State University. He also studied as a Fulbright fellow at the University of Munich. He has done nearly two dozen teaching programs in Germany. His research focuses largely on the influence of German-speaking communities within the United States and the regions of Pomeranian and Prussian Germany ceded after World War II to Stalin.

Nicole Grewling,

Assistant Professor,

grew up in Saarland and Upper Bavaria, Germany. She studied in Munich, got her M.A. at Washington University in St. Louis, and her Ph.D. in German at the University of Minnesota. Her interests lie especially in nineteenth-century German colonial fantasies and women and gender studies.