Whereas major research universities may accommodate programs of study in Arabic, Chinese, or Persian, regional universities and liberal arts colleges have struggled to adapt to a wider and more complex array of world languages and literatures in the 21st century. Many have been forced to choose between radically restructuring or closing programs in some languages. This was the case at the University of Northern Colorado. When the Department of Modern Languages faced pressure to close its French and German majors due to low enrollment, the faculty examined a limited range of options. The result is a new BA program in European Languages and Cultures. Yet what arose from necessity has the earmarks of virtue. Since introduced, the new major has seen increased enrollment in upper-division French and German courses, even motivating several of our majors to minor in other European languages, in addition to their language of emphasis. In view of its sister programs, Asian Studies, Africana Studies, and Latin American Studies, the new program perpetuates a trend for the study of languages in their regional, geopolitical context. For scholars in what is now the Department of World Languages and Cultures, adapting the study of languages to geopolitics and economics in the 21st century has meant nothing less than redefining our discipline.