Faculty Careers at Liberal Arts Colleges: Strategies, Opportunities, and Challenges

Per Urlaub (PhD, German Studies, Stanford) is Associate College Professor and Associate Dean of the Language Schools at Middlebury College. In his administrative role, he supports program development, curricular innovations, program reviews, faculty development, and hiring at twelve summer language programs in Vermont as well as Middlebury’s graduate degree programs offered in collaboration with overseas sites in Europe, Latin America, and Africa. Before moving to Middlebury in 2017, Per Urlaub was an Associate Professor of German at The University of Texas at Austin, where he also served as a Language Program Director, Director of Undergraduate Studies, and Director of Assessment. His main scholarly interest lies in the area of second language literacy development, in particular the development of literary reading and interpretation skills in the second language. He has contributed chapters on second-language reading, literature instruction, international education, curriculum development, and the role of technology in humanities education to numerous books. His articles appeared in journals such as German Quarterly, French Review, Foreign Language Annals, ADFL Bulletin, MLA’s Profession, System, Second Language Research and Practice, and Unterrrichtspraxis. He is the editor of three essay collections: Transforming Postsecondary Foreign Language Teaching in the United States (2014, with Janet Swaffar); The Brecht Yearbook 41 “Teaching Brecht” Special Interest Section (2017, with Kris Imbrigotta); and The Interconnected Language Curriculum (2018, with Johanna Watzinger-Tharp). His journalistic writing focusses on transatlantic topics and has appeared in Die Welt, The Washington Post, and The New Republic.