Director of Teaching and Learning, Professor of German Studies
College of Arts & Letters, Michigan State University

Sonja Fritzsche is the inaugural Director of Teaching and Learning in MSU’s College of Arts & Letters and Professor of German Studies in the Department of Linguistics, Languages, and Cultures.  Currently on research leave, she is pleased to have some time to devote to several scholarly projects that include a co-authored book on German-language autism memoirs (expected 2027) and the co-edited volume Neurodiverse Approaches to German Studies (expected 2027), as well as an article project on Johanna and Günter Braun’s Conviva Ludibundus. She is also excited to co-host the Science Fiction Research Association 2026 conference at MSU in June 2026 – “Into the Slipstream: Watering Futures.” And she has also co-launched the first CPIL Fellows Program with fellows from multiple US institutions dedicated to implementing the Charting Pathways of Intellectual Leadership initiative.

Fritzsche came to Michigan State University in August 2015. She has more than twenty years of academic leadership experience as Department Chair of two departments, most recently Linguistics, Languages, and Cultures. She then served for eight years both in faculty and academic affairs in the roles of (Senior) Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies and Administration (2024 & 2025) and Associate Dean for Academic Personnel and Administration in the College of Arts and Letters at Michigan State University (2017-2023). She is dedicated to values-enacted, principled leadership that empowers all faculty, staff, and students to engage fully in the academic mission and bring about the transformative change they yearn for most as intellectual leaders.

In her administrative positions, she has been instrumental in developing and implementing both the Culture of Care and the Charting Pathways for Intellectual Leadership (CPIL) framework (CPIL Toolbox cpil.hcommons.org). As a result of her latter efforts, the College received the 2024 Delphi Award from the Pullias Center of Higher Education at the University of Southern California.  She also co-created the new interdisciplinary Arts & Humanities Health and Well-being (AHHW) major program. 

A highlight of her career has been co-PI on the the Mellon funded Less Commonly Taught and Indigenous Languages Partnership (PI C.P. Long, $2.5 million) with the Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA). She is a multiple Fulbright and German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) grant recipient. Fritzsche served as 2015 President of the Modern Language Association affiliated Association of Language Departments (ALD/ADFL).