Dr. Louise Stoehr

In Creglingen, Germany
June 2010

From an early age, I was intrigued with the language and the culture of Germany, a country whose own history is so intertwined with our own. The study abroad experience afforded me by Occidental College was the first in a series of life-changing adventures that ultimately brought me to the University of Texas to pursue a doctorate in Germanic Studies, with an emphasis in Applied Linguistics and Computer-Assisted Language Learning.

I have been at Stephen F. Austin State University since 1999, initially as Director of the Modern Languages Learning and Resources Center. In Fall 2006 I began to offer the first German-language courses in our Department since the program has been closed down in the mid-1990s, and since Fall 2008 I have been Assistant Professor of German and Director of our Language Resource Center. It has been an exciting challenge to build a new program from scratch, but it truly is a rewarding one. And, as my students will attest, my enthusiasm for Germany--the language, the culture, the history--is contagious.

Dr. Louise Stoehr with her husband, Dr. Ingo Stoehr
Koblenz, June 2010

Today, it is my passion to share with my own students the same life-changing adventure upon which I embarked during my undergraduate years. The times have changed. The parameters for our study abroad journey are different from the year abroad that I first experienced. The places have changed, as the Berlin Wall has fallen, the Cold War has ended, and the two Germanys have been unified. But the adventure remains the same.

We are on a journey together to learn about Germany. But we are also on a journey to learn about ourselves and to begin examining our own lives and culture from the perspective of a place other than the one we call home. It is my goal to facilitate our students' very own adventure of a lifetime.