If you haven't heard, SUNY Albany
And as for the faculty who have been encouraged to "pursue careers elsewhere" - why not? Clearly, higher education research and teaching positions in foreign languages, history, literature, and culture are a dime a dozen. Heck - if I happen to be part of the small minority who doesn't get a full-time tenure track teaching position right out of grad school - which would only happen if I say, decided to take 10 years off to make babies and then maybe faced some minor difficulties coming back into the field - I fully intend to take one of the millions of university level language positions! I love that even if I manage to get a full time gig that might be on the tenure track I'm still liable to be "deactivated".**
I suspect many people see college level foreign language as something that provides undergrads with enough skills to not get their asses kicked in XXX foreign country as they're drinking their way through their semester abroad; and clearly this view is shared by administrators. I would like to argue, per the structuralists and post-modernists, is that language shapes our entire understanding of our universe. There are liberating and limiting structures in language that literally order our ways of thinking, knowing, and perceiving. You never appreciate the most basic aspect of the way in which language structures you (your culture, your society, even your gender), until you learn a language other than your mother tongue. Understanding the ways in which language shapes us as social creatures is as essential for reading Cervantes as it is to understanding economics and basic scientific principals. The principals of cause and effect, the construction of knowledge, and how that is shared, are all shaped, and inherently limited, by language.
If anything, I think language learning should be mandatory for all college students. I wish my college, at which I took Spanish and French, had forced me to take more language study than it did (We were required to take level 3 (3 semesters) of a foreign language. I stuck to conversational classes and I wish my reading and writing had been pushed much harder. I also wish that as someone doing German/Jewish history someone had pointed out to me that I should probably have taken German.)
The languages issue has been a big debate at my current uni as well. Because we have a language program but not a language department, there was a proposal to close the language programs for those languages not directly connected to a major or area of study. This was brought about by the budget crisis (what else?), and the basic reality that we have a couple of language classes here that are taught by 1 person who in a few cases who is really pushing up to, if not beyond, retirement age (and no plans to hire after that person leaves b/c there is, again, no money), w/ no upper division classes in said language- so it's basically intro to the language classes w/ a real limitation on where they students can then exercise their language skills. Although the proposal received a lot of push back (concerns over loss of autonomy), it's actually not that hard to connect languages to a larger area of study and hopefully full department affiliation will help secure our language professors/instructors' positions. Then again, it's all a white paper for the time being.
*In fairness, I'm not sure they even offer non-European languages, so before the non-European language scholars jump down my throat about it, I recognize that there is already a selection effect in the languages they offer.
** Does this mean that when the money comes back they get "reactivated"? Is it like in the spy movies where the ex-profs become like sleeper agents where SUNY will send them an email that will shock them out of what they see as their normal humdrum lives and they get to spring back into positions of "professor mode"? Yeah, didn't think so.
Well, most places barely fund Chinese language, and that's just outright stupid on so many levels (which should already be obvious as Chinese people speaking English more or less fluently come to America for master's degrees, PhDs, and/or business--then leave to go back to China and start companies that run American competition into the ground). But anyways, I'm not stating anything new, and I think your point is just as valid, although the mainstream might find my point more compelling. :-)
ReplyDelete(We are all) Doomed.
ReplyDeleteMy basic feeling is that there are many languages beyond the Classic European ones that absolutely should be supported at the university level - but in this debate, which is not whether they can or should add languages, but whether or not to cut what they already have, that cutting these basics is really a disservice to their students and their capacities as a university - especially one that presumes to produce research and researchers.
ReplyDeleteI also think that the impoverished state of second (or third) language learning in the US is due to lack of good programs on the primary and secondary schooling levels - in part due to teachers, in part due to funding, and in part due to dedication on behalf of the public schools.
"I suspect many people see college level foreign language as something that provides undergrads with enough skills to not get their asses kicked in XXX foreign country as they're drinking their way through their semester abroad; and clearly this view is shared by administrators. I would like to argue, per the structuralists and post-modernists, is that language shapes our entire understanding of our universe."
ReplyDeleteI respectfully disagree. The reason why languages are taught is (surprise surprise) because they constitute a useful and ultimately marketable skill. It is just not true, and this has been tested experimentally, that languages influence the way we perceive the world, except in very minor and almost trivial ways (e.g., it is easier to remember a particular shade of color if your language has a word for that specific shade). If you want students to get to think about the world in different ways, then universities shouldn't make them take language--they should make them take philosophy or anthropology.
Obviously, I'm not writing this to justify the closing of language programs. I'm just fulfilling my professional duty to educate people about language :)
(ok, I know I'm going to get in trouble for saying this: even if what you say was correct, offering languages like Spanish or German would be totally useless for that specific purpose. As language variation goes, there are no significant differences between any of the major European languages (believe me, I know about this). Even Arabic or Japanese are relatively tame. If you want students to really freak out with a foreign language, universities should be offering the languages of Native Americans from British Columbia or the Australian Outback ---those are total brainfucks).