35, no. 1 (Fall 2003): 25-29 To the Editor Search

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Italian in the World Languages Department

FOUNDED in 1959, Cabrillo College is a two-year publicly funded community college offering transfer courses to four-year institutions, occupational education, and lifelong learning courses. Current enrollment is approximately 13,500. The college has two campuses: the main campus in Aptos, a suburban and resort community seven miles from the city of Santa Cruz, and the Watsonville campus in the southern part of the county, eighteen miles from Santa Cruz, in an agricultural region.

The communities of Aptos and Watsonville are emblematic of the demographic divide between the north and the south of Santa Cruz County. In the north, tourism is the economic foundation along with high tech, education, and small business. There is a strong emerging high-tech entrepreneurial sector in the cities of Santa Cruz (the largest city, with a population of approximately 55,000) and Scotts Valley. These communities are often identified as Silicon Beach because of the many employment opportunities for skilled workers. Many north county residents commute fifty miles to Silicon Valley to work. The unemployment rate in the north county is 1.9% to 3.7%.

The city of Watsonville, located in the south county, has 43,000 residents. Seventy percent of the population is Hispanic, with a median age of 23. Agriculture and its related services and manufacturing provide the economic foundation. Watsonville has a 9% unemployment rate, and 15% of the population falls below the poverty level.¹

Cabrillo currently offers courses in five languages: French, German, Italian, Japanese, Sign Language, and Spanish.² The departmental mission falls within the larger college mission of providing transfer courses, vocational training, and opportunities for lifelong learning. In addition to the transferable two-year sequence that parallels the state university offerings, the department offers language for special purposes courses and courses off-campus that attract the working professional or retiree.

The department has instituted a communicative approach to language teaching that sets curricular outcomes at—but not limited to—the novice and intermediate proficiency levels. Nevertheless, mastery of grammatical structure still assumes an important role, for several reasons: teachers’ conviction of the importance of grammar, students’ belief that grammar is the basis of language, the expectations of transfer institutions, and an unspoken assumption that grammar represents academic rigor and hence validates language study.

French, Spanish, Italian, and German offer conversation courses to students after two semesters of study. Courses beyond the four-semester introductory sequence occur only in Spanish and emphasize film, culture, and advanced grammar. At the moment, the department does not perform systematic assessment or testing of students.

Approximately 22% of the Cabrillo student body is of Hispanic origin, accounting for the majority of heritage speakers in language courses. These students are not, however, formally identified or tracked. Heritage speakers often study in the same classes as nonheritage speakers. The exception is the course Spanish for Spanish Speakers, which focuses on spelling, vocabulary, and formal grammar training.

The department is reviewed on a cyclical basis. Evaluation is based on the overall functioning of the program as well as on the alignment of teaching practices with outcomes. The review provides an opportunity for self-study and goal setting. Departmental educational objectives are a shared faculty responsibility. In addition to departmental meetings, the most fruitful forms of faculty discussion and professional enrichment occur during FLEX days, which are organized during the week before the beginning of each semester. These (mandatory) days include scheduled meetings and presentations, as well as approved nonscheduled activities that benefit instruction.

Table 1 (p. 29) presents enrollment figures from 1997 to 2001. As the table shows, fall foreign language enrollments (as spring, not shown) increased for all languages during this five-year period. The greatest increase occurred in Italian, which experienced a nearly 200% growth. Various institutional and external factors have contributed to the growth of the Italian program.

One external factor that may have affected program numbers, particularly numbers in Italian, involves the demographics of the region. Santa Cruz and surrounding cities and towns serve as bedroom communities for Silicon Valley. As the county has grown--increasing 11.3% in population from 1990 to 2000³—so has the county’s wealth. The median household income is $47,849,⁴ up from $37,112 in 1990,⁵ an increase of 29%. On the basis of a survey of 186 metropolitan areas, the National Association of Home Builders ranked Santa Cruz as the least affordable housing market in the United States. A mere 6.9% of Santa Cruz County residents can afford to buy a median-priced home.⁶ The county’s wealth may help account for the increase in Italian enrollments at Cabrillo. In a survey of students enrolled in Italian courses during the spring 2002 semester, travel to Italy was the primary reason given for studying Italian.⁷ Table 2 (p. 29) shows the full results of the survey.

If increased wealth and more disposable income enhance opportunities for travel, why might Italian in particular reflect this situation? Sean Shesgreen, writing in the Chronicle of Higher Education, offers a plausible explanation:

When Reagan’s “morning in America” political optimism and Clinton’s prosperity ushered in a period of serenity in the 1980’s and '90’s, an increasingly self-confident population sought styles of living that embodied informality and familial ease. That casualness drew Americans to Italy. Italian movies like Cinema Paradiso, The Postman, and Life is Beautiful eclipsed French films in popularity; Bella Tuscany displaced A Year in Provence, the latter enduring through so many sequels only because it celebrated the Italian part of France. Marcella Hazan trumped Julia Child; and impenetrable French menus spawning tiny portions of food drowning in egg-butter-cream sauces yielded to Italy’s cornucopia cuisines, prepared in olive oil, now elevated to a medical wonder.

A related phenomenon is the aging of the Cabrillo student body. Currently, nearly 40% of students are over thirty.⁸ Rather than take a language course for an institutional requirement, many of these students study language for personal enrichment (the survey’s second most common reply).

The Italian program is staffed by three part-time instructors, who, depending on their availability, teach one or two courses a semester. Language courses are limited to thirty-four students, although this cap may be augmented at the discretion of the instructor.

To meet increased demand, Cabrillo has advertised for part-time instructors over the past two years. Three searches failed during this period because there were no applicants. The county’s high cost of living, the low wage offered to part-time teachers, and the lack of a graduate program in Italian at the nearby university (Univ. of California, Santa Cruz) make recruiting extremely difficult.

To maintain and increase enrollments the foreign language department has focused on study-abroad, technology, and recruitment initiatives. But Italian has not been able to participate fully in these efforts because it is staffed by a changing group of adjunct faculty members. Moreover, Italian is not taught in the high schools and does not benefit from articulation agreements, collegial contacts, or a substantial number of students wishing to continue their studies at the college level. Although it would be difficult to determine what gains Italian would make with full-time staffing and a high school presence, it is worth repeating that the language is thriving despite these perceived disadvantages.

Study-abroad programs in Mexico, France, and Italy have been created through personal initiative, although recently the department has developed a more systematic, multiyear plan for study travel programs. Typically, an instructor identifies and then visits a potential study travel venue. In collaboration with the division chair, the Study Travel Committee (composed of faculty members and administrators), and a travel agency, the department reviews the program and either approves or rejects it. A crucial consideration is the articulation between the on-campus curriculum and the curricular offerings abroad. Programs must meet the outcomes established by the department. Study travel programs do not as yet have a testing component.

In the survey results described above, several students mentioned the new study-abroad program in Florence as an incentive for Italian-language study. The first trip took place during summer 2001, enrolling thirty students. Because of security concerns, the 2002 trip was canceled. As of summer 2003, the program has not been reinstated.

Electronic media and other technological resources have been incorporated into language courses, chiefly in the form of textbook ancillary materials. These include an electronic workbook (in Spanish), CD-ROMs that provide additional linguistic practice and cultural information, and Web-based activities referenced in the textbook and found in publisher-developed Web learning centers. The materials have generally been greeted with enthusiasm by students and appear to be motivational. However, the limited availability of the materials has discouraged faculty initiative. Likewise, there is some disappointment with electronic ancillaries because the widespread expectation among instructors here and elsewhere that the incorporation of the materials will lessen the burden of teaching and grading has not been realized.

Technological training is available during the one-week program of professional enrichment activities held before the beginning of each semester. Workshops are also held through the semester. The Teaching and Learning Center was created to assist faculty members in developing and implementing technologically based materials. All full-time members of the department have some training in technology, and several incorporate original Web-based materials into their courses.

Cabrillo has formal articulation arrangements with local schools to facilitate student transition from high school to college courses for French and Spanish. These agreements specify placement, using a formula that equates years of high school course work with college-level offerings. Monthly articulation meetings are held between counselors from the high schools and college, in addition to yearly meetings between the schools’ registrars, principals, superintendents, and senior college staff members. These meetings appear to be the most effective means of forming connections between institutions.

In addition, the Outreach Program periodically arranges campus visits for students from grades 2 to 12. The college is setting up visits from institutional representatives to the various high schools. Finally, subject-specific symposia between high school and college teachers prove to be fruitful venues for exchange. Last year, the foreign language symposium was held on the Cabrillo campus.

The college does face some problems connecting with the high schools. In particular, the California Education Code prohibits colleges from competing with high schools for concurrent enrollments in subject areas. As a result, students can only cross-enroll in courses at Cabrillo that are not taught at their high school. Languages other than Spanish and French are the primary beneficiaries of this arrangement.

Approximately 4% of the general budget is allocated to the World Languages Department. Aside from salaries, the budget includes funds for supplies, equipment, and teaching assistants. The vice president of instruction allocates these funds on the basis of need. Faculty salaries are negotiated by the union, the Cabrillo College Federation of Teachers, with the Cabrillo College School District. Proposals for new lines come from each division and are justified by data such as student retention rate, number of students wait-listed for courses, and so on. Divisions present their proposals to the Tenure Track Prioritization Committee. The committee ranks the proposals and sends them on to the vice president of instruction, who adds her recommendations. Final decisions are made by the college president and confirmed by the board.

New full-time lines for languages have been consistently ranked among the lowest. Several factors account for this low ranking: a reluctance to commit college resources to disciplines that tax instructional resources (e.g., the class enrollment cap in languages); a tendency to give priority to the core humanities courses (e.g., English, math); the robust enrollments in Spanish, which serve the humanities, vocational, and community missions of the college and overshadow the perceived need for other languages; and the existence of retreat rights, whereby the college cannot replace full-time faculty members who assume administrative positions with new full-time faculty members (currently the situation for two positions). Because of a temporary hiring freeze, no positions will be available for the next academic year, including retirement replacements.

The state provides funding for faculty development and travel, which is allocated by the vice president of instruction. Each faculty member receives $125 for conference travel and competes for additional funds as needed. There is also an annual competition for equipment funds, usually in the fall and spring. Funding categories include noninstructional, instructional, faculty computers, and so on. Proposals are ranked by the department, then by the division. Finally, the Division Chair Council makes its recommendation to the vice president of instruction. One-time funds are granted competitively through the College Planning Council, and the vice president of instruction makes the final recommendation.

Student fees do not contribute to the department budget. Instead, state funding supports initiatives such as assessment, teaching with technology, and course development. These monies are also distributed on a competitive basis.

Funding for faculty development is available through the Teaching and Learning Center, which forms part of the college’s Instruction Division.

Initial start-up computer, Internet, and infrastructure expenses have been high. In good economic times, costs are stable, however, and computer power and capability increase significantly from one generation to the next (more bang for the same dollar spent). Currently, prices for computers and technology have decreased substantially, providing even more value. The state’s current budget shortfall, estimated at $15 billion, has had an immediate and severe impact on campus. The college has been asked to cut $1.5 million from its budget next year. In addition to the temporary hiring freeze, fewer classes will be offered, and fewer part-time instructors will be needed. As an example, at least three Spanish courses, one French course, and two German courses have been cut from the fall 2002 schedule. Although no definitive decisions have been made, suggested measures include the elimination of staff development funds; a reduction in departmental budgets in equipment, supplies, and teaching assistants; and a suspension of building projects.

Update: Spring 2003

This article was written in spring 2002, at a time when the college administration faced impending budget cuts, although it was unaware of their magnitude. Since then the economic situation in California has deteriorated dramatically. In June 2003, because of the recession and consequent loss of tax revenue, the state faced a budget deficit estimated by Governor Grey Davis at $35 billion. In March 2003, the state unemployment rate stood at 6.6%.⁹

The recession has hit northern California much harder than other parts of the state and nation. The region’s prosperity was largely due to dot-com ventures, whose artificially inflated bubble has since burst. The unemployment rate in Santa Cruz county was 10.5% in April 2003, a slight drop from the January high of 11.1%.

This economic downturn has had dire consequences for the California community college system. For Cabrillo College, it has resulted in budget cuts of approximately $4 million. Course offerings have been reduced by 120, and a reduction of 200 to 250 courses is expected for the spring 2004 semester. However, offerings in Italian have not been affected, at least for the upcoming fall semester.

H. Jay Siskin

Notes

The author would like to acknowledge the contributions of the following colleagues: Claire Biancalana, vice president of instruction; Bette Hirsch, dean of instruction, transfer and distance education; Félix Robles, division dean; Renata Funke, outreach coordinator; David Warren, Teaching and Learning Center; and the instructors Will Crooke, Michela Martini, Teresa Pane-Mohammed (Italian); Greta Hutchison (French); Marci Cobo (Spanish); Mo Moscowitz (Sign Language); Paula Neely, library; Rita Sanford, student assistant.

¹www.rop.santacruz.k12.ca.us/WASC_Report/visiting_team_report.pdf

²Technically, each language forms a department, and the departments form part of a division. The six departments of World Languages (Spanish, French, Italian, German, Japanese, and Sign Language studies) are housed with English and business. In this piece, I use the term department to refer to all language offerings.

³quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/06/06087.html

⁴www.childrennow.org/california/rc-2001/santacruz.pdf

⁵www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/cphls/cphl123h.html

⁶www.santacruzsentinel.com./archive/2002/January/17/local/stories/03local.htm

⁷For comparative purposes, the same survey was distributed to students in four other languages. Because the sampling is much smaller, only tentative conclusions may be drawn.

⁸Cabrillo College Voice 20 Sept. 2002: 1.

⁹www.santa-cruz.com/archive/2003/April/12/biz/stories/02biz.htm

Work Cited

Shesgreen, Sean. “Wet Dogs and Gushing Oranges: Winespeak for a New Millennium.” Chronicle of Higher Education 7 Mar. 2003: B16.

© 2003 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All Rights Reserved.

ADFL Bulletin 35, no. 1 (Fall 2003): 25-29

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