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THE POSITION of language program director (whether it is called coordinator, TA supervisor, or something else) is a key one in any foreign language department. How this person performs the job influences the lives of graduate teaching assistants and of all the undergraduate students enrolled in the language program. The responsibilities assigned to the position vary from institution to institution in the number of different courses directed, the number of TAs involved, and the amount of office staff support. Everything from the quality of an individual TA's instruction to the efficiency with which the office staff produces final exams is tied to the position of language program director.
Work load and tenure are two issues that preoccupy both language program directors and the institutions that hire them. It seems that more and more such positions are being created across the country at universities and colleges of all sizes. These two very big issues, however, are yet to be resolved by the profession. Increasingly, departments whose faculty members are traditionally oriented toward literary studies are being faced with a nontraditional faculty member. This faculty member's training and research interests are oriented not toward literary studies but toward administration. These departments are evaluating for purposes of promotion and tenure the credentials of someone in a nontraditional field of expertise and with a nontraditional work load. The intent of this article is to bring together information from various sources and present it as a cohesive whole. It is my contention that a professional modal of language program direction is emerging, a model in which the language program director is seen as a viable faculty member contributing to a legitimate scholarly field.
Teschner has studied the curriculum vitae of language program directors to determine their educational background and fields of expertise or scholarly areas of specialization. He chose to survey the directors at doctoral-degree-granting universities, which would most likely be producing future directors. Coining the term “educational linguistics” for the work performed by a language program director, Teschner found that only 14.29% of those surveyed had written dissertations in this area. The vast majority (59.09%) had written dissertations on literary topics, and a fair number (19.48%) had written on topics in theoretical linguistics.
Since the dissertation represents but a small portion of a scholar's production, Teschner also examined the topics of articles published and papers presented. Some 14.29% of language program directors publish between one- and two-thirds of their writings in applied and educational linguistics, and another 19.48% publish between two-thirds and 100% in this field (a 5.19% increase over the number who had written dissertations in the field). Some 20.13 % of the directors give between one- and two-thirds of their papers on applied and educational linguistics, and another 19.48% give between two-thirds and 100% of their papers in this field. The trend in the data is evident: as a language program director's career moves beyond the dissertation, there is more professional activity oriented toward applied and educational linguistics.
Although a comparatively small percentage of currently employed directors were trained in applied and educational linguistics, the figure may represent a historical pattern of employment. These employment statistics may reflect biases, prejudices, and perceived departmental needs. Many departments prefer to have language program directors with PhDs in the target languages, but only until recently could a PhD in applied linguistics, second language acquisition, or pedagogy be obtained through a language department. Many departments do not recognize applied language studies as a legitimate field of humanistic inquiry and do not perceive any necessity for a person with such training. These departments view the person not as a language program director but rather as a TA manager, that is, someone who is responsible should anything go wrong. Furthermore, many literature-oriented departments do not perceive that someone in applied linguistics would be able to teach anything but language courses in their department. Since these courses are typically taught by TAs, this enforces the notion of not needing a specially trained faculty member. Dvorak and Smith offer similar statements about how a specially trained language program director is viewed in a literature-oriented department.
The individual directors themselves feel a need for the exchange of professional information; hence the increase in scholarly activity in applied and educational linguistics as one's career progresses. Perhaps from the efforts of such individuals, the resolution about to be described came about.
The Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) is an organization of Romance languages departments from the Big Ten Universities (Univ. of Illinois, Urbana, Indiana Univ., Univ. of Iowa, Michigan State Univ., Univ. of Michigan, Univ. of Minnesota, Northwestern Univ., Ohio State Univ., Purdue Univ., Univ. of Wisconsin), the University of Illinois, Chicago, and the University of Chicago. The CIC meetings originally involved only the chairs and heads of the departments. In 1984, the language program directors began to meet regularly with the chairs to explore common areas of interest and need. Chairs and directors first meet in separate sessions and then in a joint session. In 1985, as a result of the second of such meetings, the chairs issued a resolution endorsed by the directors recommending that language program directors in CIC institutions:
Deceptively simple, the resolution may seem to state the obvious. It is, however, an important step toward a professional model of language program direction.
In recommending that language program directors be appointed to the tenure track, the resolution immediately raises the position from dead-end to regular faculty status. The work involved in the position is accorded institutional respect, and an individual is being assigned to a permanent position rather than to a rotating lectureship for three years. It is no longer the junior faculty member taking on the extra work under the heading of service to the department. It is no longer the default duty of the low person on the totem pole but, rather, the responsibility of a professional.
In recommending course reductions and administrative assistance, the resolution raises the position from an extension of the office staff to a regular faculty position. Many language program directors do not have an office staff member assigned specifically to them or to lower-division courses. Any work involved in administering the lower-division language program, whether or not it requires a PhD to be completed, falls to the language program director. But jobs like typing exams, working out the hours TAs will teach, and informing students of placement test results can all be performed by office staff or trained assistants. Dvorak offers a useful conceptualization of the position:
Instead of considering the language program director as a single position, it might make more sense to conceptualize it as a hierarchical one, whose infrastructure includes graduate students or other assistants trained by the director and to whom many of the day-to-day tasks of program administration could be delegated. The personal involvement of the language program director is limited then to those areas where his/her expertise is required or less easily delegated. (222)
This hierarchical structure is only now being recognized as inherent in the position. To divest language program directors of tasks that do not require their scholarly expertise will go a long way toward changing how the individual is perceived by fellow faculty members, TAs, and the office staff.
Dvorak also refers to the “ghettoization” of the language program director. This is a process whereby the director is marginalized within the departmental structure. Because of the time demands of the position and the unavailability of other courses to teach, the director is systematically confined to teaching in the language program. “The language program becomes a ghetto, a small preserve within which the directors spend almost all their time, but which their colleagues enter only on occasion, and then with condescension rather than admiration or enthusiasm” (221). This process stunts the professional growth of the language program director, who is an expert in a field but rarely if ever is allowed to teach in it.
In recommending that the job performance aspect of language program direction be presented for tenure and promotion decisions, the resolution recognizes the importance of the work and of an individual's efforts. The time put into the job will count just as if the language program director were teaching a full load of courses. The resolution assumes that the department is committed to developing the language program. There is a difference between hiring someone who will maintain the status quo and ensure that everything just runs smoothly and hiring someone to improve the language courses and their instruction. The latter position demands departmental support because it involves TA training. The department must communicate to both the faculty members and the TAs that lower-division language instruction is an important part of the functioning of the department. By including this work in the tenure packet, the department is also communicating this information to higher levels of the university.
The most important of the resolution items is the fifth, that full recognition be accorded to the fields of pedagogy, second language acquisition, and applied linguistics. Such a statement not only identifies but emphasizes the vested interest that language departments have in language learning and language teaching. It shifts leadership in the field to the language departments themselves; foreign language specialists should work in foreign language departments. It also has the effect of formally recognizing the multidimensionality of language-based studies.
The Commission on Foreign Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics, appointed by the Executive Council of the Modern Language Association, recently published recommendations it made to the Executive Council. Several of these echo the CIC resolution:
Insofar as possible departments should staff their basic language courses with regular full-time faculty members. Specialists in language pedagogy and applied linguistics should be appointed to tenure-track positions and given responsibility for supervising basic language instruction. …Because the work of the methodologist and supervisor or coordinator of language instruction is laborious and their administrative responsibility is heavy, departments must give these colleagues proper recognition in salary, tenurability, and released time. Departments of foreign language and literature should recognize the legitimacy of faculty members' research and publications in language teaching methodology and second language acquisition and should, in fact, encourage such work. (48–49)
The five points of the CIC resolution and the MLA commission's recommendations underscore the emergence of a professional model of language program direction. The intent of both is to accord full faculty status to language program directors, to make job performance feasible, to close the revolving door of hiring and then not tenuring a director, to provide leadership in the field, and to recognize the broad and diverse scope of the function language departments play in university curricula.
The CIC resolutions were born out of the practices of its participating departments and institutions. For example, the Ohio State University formalized and detailed the philosophy presented in the resolution. In 1985, the Guidelines for Annual Reviews and for Promotion and Tenure Reviews in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures were revised. The preamble states:
It must be recognized that in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures some faculty members are primarily engaged in language instruction, others in the teaching of literature, linguistics, civilization, or film. The nature of teaching, and particularly, of research and service among faculty members will thus vary. Care and reasonable flexibility must be exercised in evaluating candidates with varied commitments and responsibilities. (1)
The aforementioned flexibility reflects the research requirement that is generally recognized as the most important component in the tenure decision. “Some research may emphasize the generation or reinterpretation of knowledge or introduce new approaches, while other research may emphasize more pedagogical concerns such as writing textbooks or developing new teaching methods” (3). The Guidelines goes on to describe acceptable publications in the area of applied and educational linguistics:
Textbooks, source books, readers, anthologies of texts, contributions in the area of foreign language teaching, and similar publications which are conceived primarily for undergraduate or graduate instruction, shall be judged scholarly works when they utilize or present new methodologies or incorporate scholarly research. (4)
Of great relevance in discussing a professional model of language program direction is Ohio State's College of Humanities Promotion and Tenure Criteria Statement , revised September 1986. At the college level:
The candidate whose research area is the pedagogy of the subject field in question should likewise be expected to present demonstrable evidence of an active research program. This may include books, including textbooks, instructional software and other audiovisual media, as well as referred articles and chapters that incorporate or present theoretical ideas or advances in pedagogy. (2)
The Ohio State University is striving to legitimize and promote a field of intellectual inquiry. Recognizing the diversity inherent in the makeup of its language and literature department, it is attempting to apply flexible standards on a discipline-by-discipline basis to its departmental members. Demands in the field of literary criticism differ from those in the field of film studies, which differ from those in the fields of applied linguistics, second language acquisition, and pedagogy. Each departmental member is treated as a scholar in a field; no uniform criteria of evaluation can exist for such diversity.
Although at present, there are but a handful of specially trained language program directors, there are greater numbers working and publishing in the field. The CIC and other organizations have recognized the vested interest that their member departments have in keeping such specially trained individuals on the faculty and have resolved to upgrade the position within their own departments. Universities such as the Ohio State University have established promotion and tenure guidelines at the departmental and college levels that recognize the diverse work of the language department faculty. The CIC resolution, the MLA commission's report, and the example provided by Ohio State provide a direction for the profession and individual institutions to follow. Any institution considering hiring a faculty member to direct basic language courses should consider work load and tenurability. A language program director should be hired on a tenure line. Both the department and the university must make a commitment to the person and to the position in order to guarantee a manageable work load and the conditions necessary to obtain tenure and promotion. The resolutions and initiatives presented in this article can serve as guidelines for departments that already employ tenure-track language program directors as well as departments that are discussing the issue.
The author is Assistant Professor of Spanish Applied Linguistics at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
College of Humanities Promotion and Tenure Criteria Statement. Rev. Columbus: Ohio State U, 1986.
Dvorak, Trisha R. “The Ivory Ghetto: The Place of the Language Program Coordinator in a Research Institution.” Hispania 69 (1986): 217–22.
Guidelines for Annual Reviews and for Promotion and Tenure Reviews in the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures. Columbus: Ohio State U, 1985.
“Recommendations of the Commission on Foreign Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics.” Profession 86. New York: MLA, 1986. 46–49.
Smith, Karen L. “Moving Spanish Language Programs into the 80's: Hypotheses and Questions.” Hispania 69 (1986): 223–29.
Teschner, Richard V. “A Profile of the Specialization and Expertise of Lower-Division Foreign Language Program Directors in American Universities.” Modern Language Journal 71. 1 (1987): 28–35.
© 1987 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All Rights Reserved.
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