35, no. 1 (Fall 2003): 59-63 To the Editor Search

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Department of Modern Languages

A RECENTLY published planning brochure describes Ohio Northern University as “student-centered” and “values-based.” It is true that students are the top priority; most faculty members and administrators spend a great deal of time working with them individually and finding solutions when problems arise. The “values” allude to ONU’s affiliation with the United Methodist Church and its efforts to provide an environment that encourages spiritual growth. Approximately 20% of the student body lists “Methodist” as its religious preference; 25% of the students are Catholic; 40% indicate “other” or “no preference” in response to a questionnaire about religion. So that students can freely attend weekly ecumenical chapel services, no courses are scheduled on Wednesday mornings. The ONU mission statement emphasizes scholastic achievement and preparation for a “useful life and meaningful career.”

ONU enrolls approximately 3,200 students in the Colleges of Arts and Sciences, Business Administration, Engineering, Law, and Pharmacy. The undergraduate colleges offer baccalaureate degrees in forty-five major areas. The College of Law offers the JD and the College of Pharmacy offers the PharmD. The university is located in Ada, a small town (less than 5,000 people) in rural northwest Ohio. Most of the students are from Ohio; they are “traditional” in the sense that they enroll immediately after high school, and most live on campus. Enhancing diversity is one of the university’s stated goals.

Our departmental mission is simple and relates closely to departmental practices:

. . . to promote communication with another culture on its own terms, through its peoples, literatures, histories, and experiences of itself as a part of humanity. Thus, Modern Languages courses provide students with opportunities to learn to speak, understand, read and write other languages while developing appreciation for other cultural traditions.

We do review this statement every year or two, but we have never revised it extensively, because we feel that it expresses what we do and intend to do.

Educational objectives are definitely a shared responsibility, although the instructors for each language retain considerable autonomy. In general, we agree on the ACTFL guidelines as an overall departmental standard. The Spanish instructors meet each fall to discuss course content. The French instructors meet informally as needed or desired. We have only one German professor, and he sets his goals in the context of departmental standards. Our regularly scheduled department meetings provide a useful, productive forum for discussion of general policies and specific situations.

Our basic immediate and long-term goal for the department is to continue attracting students to our programs by providing excellent, innovative instruction; effective placement testing; and appropriate study abroad experiences.

Administrative responsibilities have increased in proportion to our increase in majors and minors; most of the burden falls on me as chair, since I check the fulfillment or requirements for graduation in addition to advising French majors and future language teachers. Considerable responsibility also falls on our senior Spanish professor, who currently advises more than thirty students, and on a junior faculty member who serves as a study-abroad adviser. That we recently upgraded our German minor to a major will mean additional work for our German professor, who also coordinates our Less Commonly Taught Languages—a program we added two years ago. There is no reward or compensation for taking on additional responsibilities, other than the satisfaction of a job well done.

In our introductory courses, we attempt to emphasize the four basic skills but in reality focus on speaking and listening comprehension, vocabulary building, and basic grammatical concepts—with limited reading and writing. We also include a strong cultural component. Statistics show that the vast majority of our elementary students enroll only to fulfill general education requirements; only about 10% go on to the intermediate level. Thus, our main goals are to instill some rudimentary grammar and vocabulary, develop basic communication strategies, and promote cultural awareness.

In our advanced curriculum, Spanish has remained essentially the same for decades. Course content for literature and civilization remained constant until recently, when our newly hired Spanish colleague introduced special-topic courses in women’s literature and contemporary Hispanic cultures. Meanwhile, in order to facilitate scheduling for our limited course offerings, our French and German curricula have been made more flexible in recent years. For example, Advanced German 1, 2, and 3 may be taken in any order; similarly, Advanced French Speaking, Advanced French Reading, and Advanced French Writing may be taken consecutively or not. Our French and German faculty members constantly revise course content in literature and civilization to reflect new developments and scholarship.

There has been no change in requirements that would affect language enrollment. However, our president and board of directors decided to increase ONU’s overall enrollment gradually over a period of years. So far, the highest percentage increase has been in the College of Arts and Sciences, where BA seekers must either demonstrate competency or complete one year (3 quarters = 12 hours) of French, German, or Spanish.

Most students choose a language on the basis of their previous exposure in high school. In our geographic area, some high schools have not replaced retiring French and German teachers for financial reasons and because new teachers are not readily available. As a result, more students come in with some Spanish and therefore gravitate toward our Spanish courses. A few students choose a different language out of intellectual curiosity or because of an unpleasant high school experience. Those with no previous background usually choose Spanish, because it is reputedly easier and more useful.

Two factors have significantly contributed to an increase in our majors and minors:

1. A university-wide decision to convert all undergraduate courses to a four-quarter, hour format. Redesigning our curriculum for four class meetings per week forced consolidation of some courses, streamlined our requirements, and facilitated scheduling, making a language minor or double major an attractive, manageable option for students.

2. Implementation of placement testing during summer orientations. We require (at least in principle) that new students have more than two years of high school French, German, or Spanish if they wish to take a computerized placement test. When students meet with advisers later in the afternoon to plan their fall schedules, we have the test results ready and a placement recommendation . The incentive for new students to perform well is that they may purchase four hours of placement credit for $25/hour, and they have the chance to test out of all or part of their one-year language requirement. Quite often, students who test into the intermediate or advanced level seem pleasantly surprised. Presented with a checklist of requirements for a minor or major, they are sometimes easily persuaded to add a language course to their first fall schedule. Once in, they usually find our classes interesting and enjoyable enough to keep going.

Some secondary factors contributing to increasing numbers of language majors and minors include a greater general awareness of international affairs, and perhaps a certain open-mindedness or greater sophistication, among our student population. For example, ten years ago, our students were reluctant to leave Ohio; now, a significant number of students in all majors seek international experiences. Enhanced study-abroad possibilities have encouraged our majors to continue.

Regarding enrollment limits in introductory courses, ONU’s policy has consistently been to accommodate students as much as possible. Therefore, we routinely add sections—usually Spanish—as needed. In the past, administrators pressured us to increase our class sizes (rather than add a section), but we stubbornly refused, citing pedagogical reasons plus ONU’s own marketing strategies (the average student-to-faculty ratio is 13:1). So far, it has not been necessary for us to attempt limiting our Spanish offerings as a means of populating French and German. Further, increasing French and German enrollments significantly would mean adding part-time instructors, which would be very difficult to find in our area.

The department recently gained a faculty line in Spanish through a gradual process. At first, we were able to demonstrate a need for greater consistency in our elementary Spanish instruction: a number of sections were being taught by graduate students recruited with some difficulty and mixed success from Bowling Green State University (60 miles north of ONU). At a crucial point, we convinced administrators to consolidate three adjunct sections into one full-time contract. Eventually, we were granted a visiting position. Finally, last year, we were able to interview several impressive candidates at the MLA convention and hired a very competent, dynamic assistant professor. When we review this saga, it seems that our success resulted mainly because we were a squeaky wheel, constantly nagging administrators and bringing our plight to their attention. Student satisfaction is one factor that apparently matters: a constant turnover in instructors certainly detracts from the kind of image ONU hopes to cultivate. It was useful for us to make this argument on numerous occasions.

We still have six sections taught by part-time instructors. This situation is not as bad as it sounds: it allows us some flexibility, it contributes to our “cost effectiveness,” and we are fortunate to have reliable instructors at the moment. Being a small department, we all serve as our own media specialists and teaching coordinators. We will replace a retiree in the next couple of years, but it seems unlikely that any new positions will be added soon.

According to current institutional data, 70% of funding for the university comes from student tuition and fees. The remaining 30% comes from endowment, gifts and grants, and investments.

The Modern Languages Department budget includes faculty salaries and benefits, work-study salaries, personal computers, instructional equipment and materials, postage, photocopying, supplies, subscriptions, and so on. As department chair, I control line items pertaining to day-to-day operations; administrators determine the salaries and allocate funds for major purchases. For projects and innovations and anything unusual, I submit a request to the dean, who approves it and forwards it to the vice president for financial affairs and the vice president for academic affairs. In most cases, my requests are granted. It should be noted that they are modest, under $10,000.

Some faculty development funds are readily available. Typically, at least two members of my department submit requests for summer projects; we nearly always receive at least $500. Supplemental travel funds are also available, usually up to $500 per year (this amount is in addition to $1,100 included in our benefits package).

Our initial investment in electronic technology involved remodeling our old language lab and installing a multimedia projector (about $10,000 plus the cost of remodeling); the second projector installed in a regular classroom had about the same price two years later. I have tentative approval to equip a third classroom in a similar way next year. We lack sufficient space and staffing to establish anything like the extensive computer labs in larger universities, but we believe we use very effectively the technology available to us.

There is always some effort to lower costs at ONU. For example, last year we were asked to reduce our budget requests by 3.5%; this year we are supposed to hold the line—no increases—but I expect that we’ll be asked to make more cuts before the amounts are finalized.

The requirements and focus for our majors have not changed. Needing to accommodate our limited offerings—only one or two advanced courses per quarter—to student schedules, we have always been more flexible than departments with a fixed sequential program. Also, courses taken abroad count toward a major, even if they don’t correspond exactly to our on-campus course descriptions.

A capstone experience is required for our majors. A study-abroad experience is recommended, although students lacking the means to travel may complete a research project instead. Thus, nearly all our majors (90%) spend at least four to six weeks in some kind of study-abroad program. Frequently, minors decide to study abroad, then declare a major when they return.

Nearly all our majors are double majors, which we encourage. ONU students and parents often ask what careers one may pursue with a language major. Since relatively few of our students go on to graduate school, we make a virtue of their pragmatism and stress language as an enhancement to any field they choose.

Until a few years ago, administrators counted only primary majors when considering the cost effectiveness of a department. Consequently, every department insisted that its majors be declared first. As second majors, thus uncounted, French and Spanish appeared moribund; we were constantly threatened with extinction. When I became chair, I launched an all-out campaign to drawn attention to our numerous double majors and their practicality. I succeeded in changing the way ONU reports statistics pertaining to majors, which has made a considerable difference in my department’s recognition in the campus community.

Continuing majors and minors are a vitally important measure of departmental success at ONU. Another measure of success is the number of new majors recruited as freshmen each year. This is a difficult standard for our department. Virtually all our recruiting is done internally, through placement testing and student interest that develops gradually over several courses. We obviously lack the career draw of majors like pharmacy or computer science, and there is nothing so distinctive about our program that it would draw future language majors to ONU specifically. Consequently, admissions statistics always reflected negatively on our department. Again, I launched a successful campaign to convince administrators to look at the larger picture.

We adhere in principle to the ACTFL guidelines. Although we do not actually test our graduating majors, we can assert with confidence that most of them have achieved at least the Advanced-Low or Advanced-Mid level.

As mentioned above, a multimedia projector has recently become our major technological resource. With this equipment, we are able to show video lessons and video clips on a large screen (as opposed to a TV); incorporate DVDs and all kinds of CD-ROM materials into our regular lessons; use PowerPoint to present all kinds of lessons, including games such as Jeopardy; use Internet resources, such as metro maps, train schedules, and various interactive Web sites, to enhance lessons at every level. In addition, advanced-level students often use PowerPoint and the Internet to present their research projects to the class. Most of our full-time faculty members use this technology nearly every day. Due to competition for the multimedia facilities, we equipped a second classroom this year; we will add another next year. Our use of this technology has greatly enhanced our instruction and helped maintain a high level of student interest. Recently, we also acquired satellite dishes to bring in French- and Spanish-language television programming.

Outside class, we have had limited success assigning Internet activities designed by textbook publishers. The CD-ROMs included with textbooks also draw mixed results. What works best for us is technology that the instructor or students control in the classroom in order to achieve specific educational goals.

Formerly (less than ten years ago), our study-abroad options were very limited. Most French and Spanish majors applied to programs offered through Bowling Green State University. Gradually, ONU began establishing some direct exchanges, mostly in English-speaking programs. For years, our department recommended that we join a consortium, but our former president always refused. When a new president was recently inaugurated, we renewed our efforts, and, after presenting our detailed rationale before a number of committees, we finally succeeded in joining the Universities Study Abroad Consortium. Through USAC, our students can participate conveniently in a number of programs in French and Spanish. Through the USAC program in Lüneburg, we were able to expand our German minor into a major. USAC also maintains English-language programs throughout the world. These opportunities are now available to all our students; faculty members in all disciplines may now take or teach courses in other countries.

In addition, there are a number of opportunities for educational travel sponsored by the university. For example, a musical theater group recently toured Chile. The Model United Nations group went to Hungary one year. The Art Department sponsors European tours during the summer. Occasionally the Chapel Program arranges service projects, such as recent Habitat for Humanity trips to Honduras and Haiti.

Preparing future teachers is one of our department’s stated objectives. According to standards established by the state of Ohio, future teachers must take four more courses in addition to our normal major requirements. Frequently, our faculty members are asked to supervise independent studies in order to accommodate education students. Aside from additional language course work, the Education Department provides most of the teacher training. Our department offers the required course Integrated Modern Language Methods every other year. We also take turns supervising student teachers. The Education Department arranges student teaching assignments based on recommendations from our department. Our alumni teachers in the area around ONU are competent and generally quite successful.

Until recently, Ohio teachers were required to keep their licensure current by earning a certain number of continuing education credits. We were able to help meet their needs by offering workshops and seminars on weekends and during the summer. Since this requirement was repealed, we no longer have any real means of attracting local area teachers to our campus on a regular basis; thus that connection has deteriorated to some extent.

Effective articulation between high schools and our own programs seems like an impossible goal, since ONU attracts students from such a wide range of communities with varying resources (albeit mainly in Ohio). While high school instruction in some areas is truly excellent, most students entering ONU either receive no placement credit or test out of only one or two quarters of their language. Better articulation between high schools and college would mean greatly improving high school instruction overall. The state of Ohio has addressed this matter by imposing a new qualifying exam for potential language teachers.

We do maintain contact with local teachers through our annual departmental newsletter, special programs on campus such as the annual Model United Nations day (which we cosponsor with the History and Political Science Departments), and participation in conferences such as those sponsored by the Ohio Foreign Language Association.

Roseanna L. Dufault

Table 2
Faculty Members by Language, Ohio Northern University, 2002–03

	Full-Time Tenure Track	Full-Time Non-Tenure Track	Part-Time
French	2	0	0
Spanish	2	0	3
German	1	0	0

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

ADFL Bulletin 35, no. 1 (Fall 2003): 59-63

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