19, no. 1 (September 1987): 1-2
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FROM THE EDITOR
Cheryl A. Demharter
To me, the academic year isn't what it used to be. From the perspective of someone who has just administered two ADFL Summer Seminars, I remember the days when my colleagues and I ended the spring semester by working far into the night to finish reading term papers, grading exams, and computing final grades so that we could catch that flight to Paris or Caracas or Montreal or Tokyo. Those final exhausting chores seemed like a last hurdle to cross before the three-month summer period of rest and research.
Administrative duties, whether in an academic department or a professional association, do not permit such leisurely intervals. The organization of the ADFL seminars, for example, requires a full year or more of planning. The ADFL Executive Committee works with me in determining sites, topics, and possible speakers for the seminars at least fifteen months in advance. Once a location has been agreed upon and the on-site planning committee set up, work begins on narrowing down suggested topics and speakers and on negotiating lodging and meal arrangements. I usually meet with the on-site planning committees for both seminars in September of the preceding year to work out these details. In the fall official letters of invitation are sent to potential speakers, and lodging and meal contracts are signed.
When the list of speakers is final, I write copy for the promotional brochure, which the MLA production staff then designs. Once everyone agrees on the content and format, it goes to the printer. We mail the brochure in March, and as soon as we begin receiving the registration forms, my staff and I input the information on our data base. In addition, we take care of equipment and copying requests from the speakers. The final program, which includes specifics on everything from room locations to excursions and coffee breaks, is drawn up about three to four weeks before the beginning of each seminar and mailed to registrants, who also receive information on the seminar location and copies of papers and handouts that speakers have asked us to distribute before their presentations. By the time my assistant and I are ready to leave for the seminar, armed with handouts, rosters, discussion group lists, badges, and so forth, all details have ideally been taken care of, and we are ready to plunge into the flurry of activities.
The seminars have traditionally enabled foreign language department chairs to come together in a spirit of comradery and collegiality to discuss common and not-so-common problems. Many learn of interesting and innovative solutions to difficult situations that a colleague halfway across the country may have encountered. Some are encouraged to try new approaches to deal with higher levels of administration or with “problem” faculty members. Various curriculum reorganizations have stemmed from informal comparative analyses during the discussion groups, and positive networking has continued throughout the academic year. These are but a few of the benefits that have often been noted on seminar-evaluation forms.
The formal presentations selected for the seminars address issues considered current and pressing in the field and attempt to elicit fruitful discussion of these topics. The elaboration of themes from one year to the next high-lights their importance. Among the most pertinent are technological advances and innovations, various administrative concerns, and curriculum development.
At this year's seminars—in Charlottesville, Virginia, and in Park City, Utah—the participants were treated to highly stimulating demonstrations of some of the most advanced technological applications in foreign languages. At Seminar East, Douglas Morgenstern, of MIT, showed excerpts from interactive videotapes based on the principles of artificial intelligence developed through the Athena project. With the Spanish interactive video entitled “No Recuerdo” the student plays detective in trying to find clues to help a scientist regain his memory. The student can use various levels of linguistic and cognitive abilities in sorting out the clues, and several endings to the story are possible. The participants at Seminar West had the opportunity to view an interactive video program in German and several other computer language programs at the BYU Humanities Research Center. Among these were a highly sophisticated text-indexing and -retrieval software that can save researchers huge amounts of time and a Chinese word processor that uses Pinyin romanization for character input but that can then convert the Pinyin to either simplified or classical Chinese characters.
The administrative issues discussed at this year's Seminar East included the evaluation of faculty members working in pedagogy and methodology, an overview of junior-faculty development, and special administrative concerns for the less commonly taught languages. At Seminar West, presentations focused on the administration of study-abroad programs and language houses, the expectations and responsibilities of new faculty members, and the importance of having senior faculty members act as mentors to the junior staff.
Concerning curriculum development, participants at Seminar East heard presentations on how to integrate proficiency concepts in all four skills into the curriculum. At Seminar West, curriculum issues involved the integration of culture, literature, women's studies, and film studies at the undergraduate level. Discussions at both seminars underscored the importance of defining the changing foreign language curriculum and the mission of foreign language departments. In addition, both seminars featured speakers on extramural funding possibilities for individual, departmental, and campus-wide projects.
A major concern among speakers and participants at these meetings was the foreign language department's move from insularity toward a wider role in the university. This trend was noted on several levels, from foreign language faculty members serving on major university committees to the development of interdisciplinary courses and programs with social studies, business, sciences, and the other humanities. Articulation with schools and with overseas programs was also an importanttopic of discussion.
Now that the seminars are over and the consequent paperwork begun, I can take time to reflect on the strong and positive feelings and impressions that the meetings generated among the participants. The organization of events went smoothly, the locations were superb, the on-site committees extremely helpful, and the participants frank, open, and friendly. We had all the right ingredients in the correct proportions to make for two excellent meetings.
In addition to working up evaluation summaries, taking care of financial matters, and soliciting papers from our speakers, the follow-up duties include preparing the resolutions and recommendations from the discussion groups and the Caucus of Women Administrators at both seminars. These will be presented to the ADFL Executive Committee at its meeting this September and will appear in the January 1988 ADFL Bulletin . The Executive Committee can deal with these reports in a number of ways, from drawing up policy statements to initiating surveys. We will keep our members and seminar participants informed of these activities and will present the results at next year's seminars, to be held at Brandeis University and at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Oh yes, be assured that plans for the 1988 meetings are already under way.
© 1987 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All Rights Reserved.
ADFL Bulletin 19, no. 1 (September 1987): 1-2 |
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