21, no. 1 (Fall 1989): 1-2
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From the Editor
Judith Ginsberg
THE high point of ADFL's year comes in June at our summer seminars. I have just returned from our 1989 meetings, and the excitement and vitality they generated are still very much with me. Planning these gatherings takes almost a full year, and it is truly a team effort. This time we had the invaluable assistance of our hosts, Jean-Pierre Piriou, head of Romance languages at the University of Georgia, and Al Ford, chair of foreign languages at California State University, Northridge, both of whom I thank for their generous contributions of time and talent to the innumerable details of planning.
I would like to share some of my enthusiasm for these very special seasonal rites and to extend a cordial invitation to department chairs, program directors, or their designates to join us next year. We will be meeting at Pennsylvania State University 7–9 June and at Pima County Community College and the University of Arizona 21–23 June in 1990. As we work out the details of these seminars over the next three months, we would welcome your suggestions for next year's program. Please write to us at ADFL headquarters or call us at 212 614–6320. Summer may seem far away right now, but as one of this year's participants pointed out to me, it might be well to secure your funding now for next June.
Unlike other meetings, ADFL's summer seminars provide a special forum for chairs to exchange information, hear from the field, discuss issues, and make and renew friendships. From breakfast forums until nightcaps, collegiality and intellectual stimulation mark our time together. A great variety of institutions are represented, yet it is remarkable how much we have to say to one another and, despite our obvious differences, how much we have in common. A colleague from a research university in the East commented in a letter on the “congenial though varied group” in California, adding that he had come “away the richer for the papers and the conversation.”
Everyone is welcome. After attending Seminar East in Georgia, a chair from a West Coast community college wrote, “Many people mentioned to me how useful they found it. Some seemed surprised that it was not an ‘in group’ of regulars, and seemed quite open to newcomers.” The seminars are indeed open to newcomers, and over the years new chairs have found them especially useful. Since our policy is sometimes misunderstood, let me add that participants are invited to attend whichever seminar most interests them, regardless of the location of their institutions.
Formal papers, informal presentations, plenary and “breakout” discussion meetings, surveys, questionnaires, self-assessment instruments, sample grant applications, and various kinds of handouts are some of the vehicles we use to communicate at the seminars. Through these means we define major issues in the field and address them from a number of perspectives—disciplinary, institutional, and personal. This year, for example, we examined the place of foreign languages and other humanities in higher education and cast a critical eye on the issue of disciplinary equality. Seminar participants presented anecdotal evidence, as well as published salary levels, showing the preferential treatment given to other fields, a practice that constitutes a major deterrent to collegiality, especially on larger campuses. A variety of strategies were proposed for dealing with this situation.
At both seminars there was also a pervasive concern for the recruitment and retention of minority students and faculty members, a concern that reverberated through presentations and discussions of mentoring, study abroad, and the curriculum. As Bettina Huber, MLA's director of research, points out, now is the time to do all in our power to attract minority undergraduates to the field, since the great numbers of retirements expected in the 1990s will provide many opportunities for younger people.
The description of a much needed innovation introduced at one graduate school—a course to train graduate students to teach French at the college level—met with great interest. In addition, participants learned about successful foreign language magnet schools, both elementary and secondary, and contemplated how these schools would affect the teaching of languages in colleges.
This year the seminars also featured speakers from outside the discipline who focused on issues of departmental management. The ability to know one's own leadership style and assess the sensitivities of one's colleagues can help an administrator manage effectively in times of tight budgets and limitations on hiring.
The challenge of preparing successful grant applications and directing worthwhile grant-funded projects seemed more within our reach after listening to representatives from funding agencies, as well as to those who have triumphed in that arena. Yet, as veterans pointed out, the allure of outside funding can sometimes be misleading and may camouflage difficulties encountered once the funds are in hand. Experienced voices warned, “Don't do it for the money, and only undertake projects that meet your needs.”
An ADFL questionnaire distributed at the seminar was designed to provide information about the rights and responsibilities of department chairs. Approximately ten percent of ADFL's membership of almost a thousand departments attended the seminars and completed the questionnaire, which was designed by the 1989 ADFL Executive Committee and MLA's director of research, Bettina Huber. When the results are tabulated, we will have a better idea of how chairs are recruited, how long they serve, and what types of compensation and other support they receive.
The ADFL Bulletin will publish a number of presentations given at the seminars in the January and April 1990 issues. Often, however, the printed word cannot fully convey the excitement of the presentation. The seminars are much more than the sum of the papers given, as I hope many of you will discover for yourselves in the years ahead.
Turning from June to the new academic year and the opening of the hiring season, I would like to bring to your attention a significant change in MLA procedures, which many of you may already have noted: there is now a charge for advertising in the Job Information Lists, with a discount for ADFL members. As you know, for the past eighteen years, from the inception of the Lists in the fall of 1971 through the 1989 Summer Supplement, advertising has been free. The fees instituted with the October 1989 Lists will be used to provide a partial subsidy for registration fees for graduate students attending the convention and to help offset the costs of the published Job Information Lists.
Another innovation is the Bulletin's new cover, for which we owe thanks to David Cloyce Smith, MLA's design maven. Although you can't judge a publication by it, we hope readers will find it inviting.
I close with best wishes for a productive and fulfilling new academic year.
© 1989 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All Rights Reserved.
ADFL Bulletin 21, no. 1 (Fall 1989): 1-2 |
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