24, no. 2 (Winter 1993): 5-38 To the Editor Search

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Works Cited

IN 1988 the MLA identified a representative sample of college and university foreign language programs to be surveyed on a regular basis. The comprehensive baseline survey of this sample covered the 1987–88 and 1988–89 academic years and was carried out with the aid of funds provided by the Rockefeller Foundation and The Pew Charitable Trusts. Its purpose was to compile descriptive data on current academic programs and administrative arrangements and, where they can be represented statistically, to describe selected characteristics of strong foreign language programs. The following pages summarize those findings that deal with institutional and departmental context, faculty size and composition, the faculty's role in governance, faculty travel, fall 1988 enrollments, and degree programs and numbers of majors. An article scheduled to appear in the next issue of the ADFL Bulletin (Spring 1993) examines findings relating to various aspects of the curriculum (i.e., characteristics of introductory language courses, intensive courses, and immersion opportunities and types of courses offered). The 1987–89 survey also included several questions about institutional foreign language requirements; responses to these were summarized in the Fall 1992 issue of the Bulletin (Huber, “Foreign Language Requirements”). ¹

The Foreign Language Sample

Choosing a sample of foreign language programs to survey on a regular basis required knowledge of the universe of institutions with such programs. We identified the components of this universe by establishing a database of all college and university foreign language programs in the United States. ² Thereafter, we chose a stratified random sample of programs; in its final form, it includes 27% of all foreign language programs in United States colleges and universities and 23% of all institutions with foreign language programs. (The procedures followed in establishing the sampling frame and choosing the sample are discussed in the appendix.) Of the language programs agreeing to participate in the MLA's surveys, 85% returned questionnaires ( N =607), with fully 80% completing both parts of the inaugural survey. In the light of the volume of information requested, this represents a high response rate. The final response sample includes 23% of all collegiate foreign language programs and 20% of all postsecondary institutions with foreign language programs. Because large institutions were oversampled, the institutions included in the response sample educated 36% of all students enrolled in colleges and universities with foreign language programs in fall 1986.

Table 1 compares major subgroups of respondents with comparable groups in the original sample. The last column indicates the percentage of each subgroup completing at least one part of the survey. ³ The figure is 75% or higher in all but one group, and it exceeds 80% in all but six. Thus all major sample subgroups are well represented among the responding programs. Programs in two-year colleges are less well represented than might be ideal, as are four-year programs granting no more than an MA and those without a major (i.e., programs offering courses but granting no degree).

More detailed analysis indicated that responses within one sample subgroup may be unrepresentative. Single-dual language departments (defined in the next section) account for 42% of the programs sampled in baccalaureate institutions, compared with 20% of all programs in such institutions. This finding suggests that liberal arts colleges with multiple language programs are overrepresented in the sample, while those with less specialized programs, which are the more typical, are underrepresented. Thus some caution must be exercised in generalizing the results for foreign language programs in baccalaureate institutions, as the programs in the sample are not entirely typical of those in the larger universe.

A similar bias emerges for language requirements. The percentage of institutions in the sample with language requirements is higher than for all colleges and universities in the United States; this overrepresentation is particularly marked among two-year institutions (Huber, “Foreign Language Requirements”). It appears that institutions with well-developed language programs are overrepresented in the response sample, not an unexpected finding, since such programs are more likely to complete detailed questionnaires than those with limited offerings. Although constituting a bias in the sample, the overrepresentation of well-developed programs is a virtue in regard to program strength. In fact, were such two-year programs not overrepresented, analysis of program strength in two-year colleges would probably not have been feasible.

Institutional Context

Throughout the analyses presented here, two separate dimensions of institutional type are examined: the broad distinction between two- and four-year institutions, and the finer distinctions between types of four-year institutions (i.e., the Carnegie categories of baccalaureate, comprehensive, and doctorate-granting institutions). The 607 foreign language programs in the final survey sample are housed in 411 institutions. Of these, 27% are two-year colleges and the remaining 73% are four-year schools. Among the latter, 16% are baccalaureate institutions with four-year liberal arts programs leading to a bachelor's degree, 54% are comprehensive institutions that offer master's and professional degrees in some fields but are primarily undergraduate institutions, and 30% are doctorate-granting institutions (i.e., research universities with multiple graduate programs). In addition, 61% are public institutions, 20% are private independent institutions, and 19% are church-affiliated institutions.

Institutional size was defined by the number of full- and part-time students enrolled at an institution in the fall of 1987. ⁴ Enrollments at the institutions housing sampled language programs range from 169 to 65,000; the mean is 9,944. The median enrollment is lower (6,282), with half the institutions enrolling between 2,500 and 13,000 students. The vast majority of programs (81%) operate on the semester system; 16% operate on the quarter system. The remaining 2% are on the trimester system or on some other academic calendar.

Source of funding, institutional type, and institutional size often serve to distinguish curricular and other features of foreign language programs; consequently, it is important to appreciate at the outset how these factors are related. The majority of public institutions are two-year colleges, while almost all private independent and church-related institutions have four-year undergraduate programs. Among four-year colleges and universities, close to two-thirds of the public institutions with foreign language programs are comprehensive, while the majority of private independent and church-related institutions are baccalaureate. Further, almost half of all public institutions enroll more than 5,000 students, compared with 19% of private independent institutions and 7% of church-related institutions. Both types of private institutions tend to be small, with well over half enrolling fewer than 2,000 students. Among four-year institutions, doctorate-granting institutions tend to be considerably larger than baccalaureate institutions. ⁵

The relations just summarized indicate that certain types of institutional characteristics tend to go together. These linkages affect how the characteristics' relation to various features of foreign language programs are discussed in the following pages. Thus, for example, differences in the curricula of programs in public and private institutions are outlined only if they cannot be accounted for by the differences in institutional type and size. Further, the relation of size and program characteristics—both of which are affected by source of funding and institutional type—is not noted where it is spurious.

Annual Budgets and Funds for Innovative Programs

Respondents were asked to provide information about changes in the campus's annual budget during the previous five years (i.e., 1984–89). Their responses indicated that budget increases were far more typical than budget decreases. Just over three-quarters of the respondents (77%) reported that their institution's total annual budget had increased during the previous five years, while only 8% said it had decreased. Eleven percent said that the budget had remained the same, and 5% said that they were not in a position to judge the state of the budget. The percentage of respondents reporting budget growth does not vary by institutional type or size but does differ slightly by source of funding: 71% of the respondents in public institutions reported budget increases, compared with 85% in private institutions.

According to the survey responses, funds for developing innovative programs or modifying the manner in which existing courses are taught were available on most campuses in 1989. Most respondents (70%) reported that funds for innovative teaching were available at their institutions, while 30% reported that they were not. The percentage of respondents saying that such funds were available in 1989 is virtually identical at two- and four-year institutions. Funds were less likely to be available at certain types of four-year institutions, though this situation varied by source of funding. In particular, respondents at public comprehensive institutions were less likely to report having access to funds for innovative teaching than were respondents at public doctorate-granting institutions (50% vs. 77%). ⁶ Among respondents from private institutions, an approximately equal percentage (72%–82%) at all three types of institutions reported having access to funds for innovative teaching activities.

Types of Language Programs

In assembling the database from which the sample of foreign language programs was drawn, we used programs' formal titles to assign them to one of the following types of administrative units:

Divisions , which offer nonlanguage courses (e.g., philosophy, fine arts, history) in addition to foreign language courses. Most are also responsible for English instruction.

Collective language programs , which offer courses in a range of unrelated languages, are usually responsible for all foreign language instruction at an institution. Approximately one in three is also responsible for instruction in English.

Language group programs , which are responsible for instruction in a family of linguistically related foreign languages (e.g., Slavic, Romance, East Asian). Classics departments are included in this group.

Single-dual language departments , which offer courses in one or two foreign languages. Typically, single language departments focus on Spanish, French, or German, while dual language programs deal most frequently with Spanish and Portuguese, French and Italian, or German and Russian.

Of the foreign language programs responding to the surveys, 15% are divisions, 42% are collective programs, 24% represent language groups, and 18% are single-dual language departments.

In what follows, the four program types are sometimes collapsed into two for the purposes of analysis. In this case, inclusive programs responsible for all foreign language instruction at an institution (i.e., divisions and collective programs) are compared with specialized programs that confine their activities to a restricted number of languages (i.e., language groups and single-dual language departments). In its dichotomous form, program type serves as a measure of the institution's administrative arrangements for language instruction. Thus, with a few exceptions, inclusive programs are located in institutions in which all foreign language instruction is administered by a single unit, whereas specialized programs are located in institutions with two or more separate administrative units devoted to language instruction.

The full database of foreign language programs provides a better means of assessing how program type varies by key institutional characteristics. Analysis of the larger database reveals that at both two- and four-year institutions, collective programs are the most prevalent (55% and 48%, respectively, of all programs). Two-year colleges are more likely than four-year institutions are, however, to house their programs in divisions (42% vs. 12%), while programs in four-year institutions are more likely to be devoted to a language group or to one or two languages (40%, vs. 4% at two-year colleges). Among four-year programs, 76% of the programs in doctorate-granting institutions focus on language groups or on one language or two, while 70% of those in comprehensive institutions are collective programs responsible for all foreign language instruction. Although 48% of the programs in baccalaureate institutions are collective programs, relatively few are divisions. Instead, 21% are single-dual language departments, an atypically high figure in relation to the program types prevalent at other kinds of four-year institutions. This finding suggests that foreign language programs in baccalaureate institutions may be distinctive in a number of respects.

With the exception of programs in very large institutions, the majority are organized as collective programs (from 52% to 58% in the four size groups). In addition, as institutional size increases, the percentage of programs organized as divisions decreases (from 31% to 4%), while the percentage organized by language group or by one or two languages increases (from 13% to 69%). The effect of size manifests itself somewhat differently in two- and four-year institutions, as table 2 indicates. ⁷ Very few two-year colleges have specialized foreign language programs (i.e., those organized as language groups or single-dual language departments), but as institutional size increases, the percentage of two-year programs organized as divisions tends to decrease, while the percentage organized as collective programs tends to increase. (With the exception of programs in very large institutions, differences by size are not marked at the two-year level.) Among four-year institutions the percentage of inclusive programs decreases and the percentage of specialized programs increases as institutional size increases. Thus approximately four-fifths of the language programs in very small four-year institutions are inclusive, while approximately the same percentage of those in very large four-year institutions are specialized.

Highest Degree Granted in Language

Very few programs at two-year institutions offer an AA degree in language per se. Of the survey respondents in two-year institutions, only 15% claimed to do so. The remainder offer foreign language courses but grant no degree. The percentage of programs offering an AA degree in language does not differ by program type, source of funding, or institutional size, largely because so few programs offer this option.

Among four-year institutions the picture is quite different, with highest degree granted closely tied to institutional type, institutional size, and program type. The four-year foreign language programs in the sample grant the following types of degrees: ⁸

Clearly, four-year language programs most commonly grant no more than a bachelor's degree. This propensity varies by institutional type; table 3 indicates that close to two-thirds of the language programs in baccalaureate and comprehensive institutions grant no more than a BA, while relatively few programs in doctorate-granting institutions do so. The majority of programs in the latter grant a PhD in one or more languages.

Table 4 indicates that as institutional size increases, the highest degree granted by a language program becomes more advanced. Thus approximately nine in ten programs in small and medium-sized institutions grant no more than a BA degree, compared with fewer than one in five programs in very large institutions. Well over half the programs in the latter grant the PhD.

Table 5 indicates that the majority of divisions offer courses but grant no degree, while the majority of collective programs grant the BA only. Specialized programs, whether organized as language groups or as single-dual language departments, tend to offer graduate degrees, usually the PhD. In short, most specialized language programs in very large doctorate-granting institutions offer a doctorate (72%), while most collective programs in baccalaureate and comprehensive institutions with fewer than 5,000 students offer a bachelor's degree only (78%). Four-year programs organized as divisions, which, in the sample, cluster in comprehensive institutions, generally offer courses in at least one language, but have no major.

Number of Languages in Which Courses Are Offered

The number of languages in which responding programs offer courses ranges from 1 to 22. The mean is 4 languages, and the median 3. Half the programs offer courses in 2 to 5 languages, with one-quarter offering courses in 2. Thirteen percent offer courses in one language only, 16% offer courses in 3 languages, 12% in 4, 11% in 5, and 7% in 6. Nine percent offer courses in 7 or 8 languages, and the remaining 7% offer courses in 9 or more languages. Not surprisingly, the number of languages in which courses are offered varies most markedly by program type (see table 6). Collective language programs offer courses in the largest number of languages (5 or 6 on average), and almost all single-dual language departments offer courses in no more than 2 languages. ⁹ Programs organized as divisions and language groups fall between these two extremes, offering courses in 3 or 4 languages, on average.

Collective programs in two- and four-year institutions differ in the average number of languages they offer: 4 as opposed to 6. Four out of five two-year programs offer courses in 5 or fewer languages, while only 18% offer courses in 6 or more. The latter are distinctive in a number of respects. They are the only two-year programs that do more than offer instruction in the three most commonly taught languages (Spanish, French, and German); all or almost all of the two-year programs offering 6 or more languages teach courses in the commonly taught languages plus Italian. In addition, they account for all two-year programs offering instruction in Portuguese ( n =3); 14 of 18 programs offering instruction in Russian; 11 of 13 programs offering instruction in Chinese; 5 of 6 programs offering instruction in Hebrew; and 3 of 4 programs offering instruction in Arabic. ¹⁰

Two-year programs offering 6 or more languages are distinctive in a number of other respects. First, almost all are located in institutions with 5,001 or more students, with four-tenths found in institutions with more than 15,000 students. And second, 63% of respondents from programs offering 6 or more languages reported that the humanities dean who supervises their programs views language study as indispensable or essential. Of the respondents from programs offering fewer languages, only 39% reported that their deans had similarly positive views of language study. ¹¹ These findings suggest that programs offering 6 or more languages are able to do so because they are likely to be in very large institutions with supportive deans. Perhaps the resources and the demand needed to create and sustain such robust two-year programs are available only under such circumstances.

Individual Languages Offered

Almost 100 different languages are offered by the programs in the sample, most quite infrequently. To facilitate analysis, only the 13 languages offered by more than 5% of the institutions in the sample were retained as separate categories. The remainder were divided into 7 language groups, along with a residual category for languages that did not fit into any of the larger groupings identified. The resulting 21 categories are listed in table 7, as are the individual languages grouped in each.

Table 8 compares the relative frequency with which the institutions in the sample and the institutions in the MLA's database of foreign language programs offer the 21 languages and language groups. The three commonly taught languages—Spanish, French, and German—are offered by 68%–95% of the institutions in the database and by 75%–95% of the institutions in the response sample. Another 6 languages are less commonly taught: Italian, Russian, Japanese, and Chinese, as well as Latin and Greek. They are offered by 15%–30% of the institutions in the database and by 25%–45% of those in the sample. The remaining languages and language groups are offered by no more than 10% of the institutions in the database and no more than 16% of those in the sample. Thus they are uncommonly taught. ¹²

When the percentages of institutions in the response sample offering given languages are compared with those in the MLA database, the three commonly taught languages are appropriately represented. So are most of the less commonly taught languages; only Italian and Russian are overrepresented in the response sample. Among the uncommonly taught languages, all but Hebrew and the Scandinavian languages are somewhat overrepresented. Since the number of institutions offering the uncommonly taught languages is limited, their overrepresentation in the sample is to be welcomed and is the outcome of including all language programs at an institution, rather than a randomly chosen few, in the sample. Had such a strategy not been adopted, several of the categories included in table 8 would have been too small to be viable (e.g., Polish, South Asian languages). Only the category for “other languages” is underrepresented in the sample; such an outcome is not unexpected for a residual category. ¹³

The likelihood that a program will offer a given language depends most directly on the type of program. Table 9 indicates that almost all divisions in the sample offer Spanish and French and well over half offer German. No more than a quarter offer any of the other languages or language groups listed. Collective programs also offer Spanish, French, and German with great frequency; in addition, they are more likely than specialized programs are to offer Russian, Japanese, and Chinese. Programs organized as language groups, in contrast, are more likely than others are to offer the uncommonly taught languages.

Changes in the Scope of Language Programs

If one judges by the responses to the question whether independent language units had been created or disbanded between 1980 and 1988, relatively few institutions have changed the structure of their language program(s) during the last decade. Of the 474 institutions included in the foreign language sample, 40 (8.4%) appear to have altered the structure of their programs. ¹⁴ Of these only two (1.4%) are two-year institutions.

Of the 327 four-year institutions in the sample, 38 (11.6%) have modified the structure of their programs since 1980. The changes are as likely to have been an increase as a decrease in the number of language units. ¹⁵ A decline in the number of units rarely entailed outright abandonment of all course offerings. More typically, programs losing their independent status were absorbed into a larger unit or combined with others. Expansion in the number of language programs at a four-year institution took one of three forms: creation of an independent foreign language program, subdivision of an existing unit, or addition of a new unit. With one exception, totally new foreign language units were rarely established. The exception applies to programs in one or more Asian languages, which were created by 9 institutions between 1980 and 1988; this figure represents 24% of all four-year institutions at which a change in the number of language units occurred. ¹⁶

A change in scope was more frequent at the program level than at the institutional level. Internal alterations in the status or format of foreign language programs since 1980 took the following forms:

The percentage of programs adding degree options falls midway between the percentage adding and dropping languages. Change in available degree options is confined to four-year programs; 29% report adding one or more.

The specific options added are listed below:

The first three degree options were added with the greatest frequency. Master's programs also appear to have been added by approximately one in ten four-year foreign language departments. Whether degree options have been added does not vary by any of the institutional and departmental characteristics enumerated thus far.

Combining the three types of changes (i.e., languages added, languages dropped, degree options added) yielded a summary measure of whether the scope of foreign language programs had changed between 1980 and 1988. Just over half the programs in the sample reported at least one change, while 47% said programs had remained unchanged. Inclusive programs are considerably more likely to report change than specialized programs (64% vs. 38%). Among the former, collective programs are somewhat more likely to report change than divisions (67% vs. 54%). Programs offering 6 or more languages are more likely to report at least one change than programs offering 1 or 2 languages are (72% vs. 35%). The relation between number of languages offered and percentage reporting change is clear-cut among inclusive programs but insignificant among specialized programs; the majority report no change regardless of number of languages offered.

Table 10 lists the specific languages that programs report having added or dropped since 1980. Almost all languages have been more frequently added than dropped. Among the 10 major languages and language groups in the table, Japanese and Chinese are the most often added and the least frequently dropped. The most frequently dropped are Germanic and Slavic languages.

The Administration's View of Foreign Languages

In the long run, the fate of foreign language programs depends, to some degree, on the campus administration's opinion of the importance of the subject. Consequently, survey respondents were asked to indicate how, in their opinion, “the college or university administrator responsible for the humanities views foreign language study for undergraduates.” Administrators looked on such study in the following ways:

In the eyes of the majority of survey respondents, the administrators responsible for the humanities consider foreign language study essential to, if not indispensable for, a well-rounded undergraduate education. In a decided minority are those who see foreign language study as merely useful or as an option that should be available.

In addition, respondents were asked to indicate whether other members of the college's or university's administration shared the administrator's views. Nine percent said that everyone agreed with the humanities administrator on this issue, while 62% said that most other members of the administration did. Another 26% said some members of the administration shared the view, and 3% said that few members of the administration did. Among respondents who said that their humanities dean viewed foreign language study as indispensable to all undergraduates, 24% reported that everyone in the administration had the same view, while 59% said the opinion was held by most campus administrators. Among respondents ascribing other views to their humanities deans, only 6% claimed that everyone in the administration agreed, though 60% to 65% said that most campus administrators held similar opinions. It seems fair to conclude, therefore, that the views of the humanities dean are typical of the whole administration.

The administration's view of the importance of foreign language study is linked to the role played by foreign languages on the campus. As table 11 indicates, on campuses with language requirements in 1980—the vast majority of which were still in place in 1988—the administration had a more positive view of foreign language study than on campuses without foreign language requirements in 1980. ¹⁷ Just over a quarter of the respondents on campuses with language requirements said that their administration viewed language study as indispensable for all undergraduates, compared with fewer than a tenth of those on campuses without the requirements. The administrators at the latter were much more likely to consider language study as something that is useful or should be available to interested students.

Similar attitudes prevail, as table 12 indicates, on campuses where all foreign language instruction is housed in a single administrative unit. Forty-seven percent of the respondents in inclusive language programs reported that their campus administrators viewed foreign language study as useful or as something that should be available to interested students. Among respondents from specialized programs, in contrast, only 18% reported such views. Instead, they were much more likely to say that, according to their campus administrators, foreign language study is indispensable. In short, it appears that campuses with a firm commitment to foreign languages—as evidenced by well-established language requirements and multiple language units—have administrators who deem foreign language study to be an integral part of undergraduate education.

Faculty Size and Composition

Number of Faculty Members in Rank and Status Groups

The first column in table 13 shows the percentage of programs that had at least 1 faculty member in each rank or status group in 1987–88. ¹⁸ The remaining three columns present several measures of the average number of faculty members in each rank or status group: the mean, the median, and the interquartile range. ¹⁹

Just over 70% of the programs in the sample have at least 1 full or associate professor, while just under two-thirds lay claim to at least 1 assistant professor. On average, the programs in the sample have between 2 and 3 faculty members in each of the three tenure-track ranks, with the average number of assistant professors tending to be smaller than the average number of full professors. Thus half the programs in the sample have between 2 and 5 full professors, but only 1 to 4 assistant professors. Instructors and lecturers are much less frequently present, with 30%–40% of the programs in the sample having one or more. Insofar as programs have such faculty members, they have 2 lecturers, on average, and 1 instructor. Although the sampled programs are relatively unlikely to have teaching assistants—just over a fifth of all programs in the sample employed them during 1987–88, as did 37% of the four-year programs—those that do, employ substantial numbers; one-quarter of the programs employing TAs report hiring more than 20 during 1987–88.

The total number of faculty members ranges from 5 to 17 in half the programs; nine in ten programs have at least 1 full-time tenured or tenure-track faculty member. Programs with at least 1 tenured faculty member have 5, on average, with one-half having between 2 and 9. Such faculty members account for most of the full-time tenure-track faculty members in a department, and thus, as table 13 indicates, the average number of faculty members with full-time tenured and tenure-track positions is similar. The number of full-time tenure-track faculty members ranges from 3 to 10 for half the programs in the sample; the figure is as high as 17 in only one-tenth of the programs.

Although approximately two-thirds of the programs in the sample have at least 1 full-time non-tenure-track faculty member, they tend to be relatively few in number; three-quarters of the programs employ no more than 2 full-time non-tenure-track faculty members. The number of programs employing part-time faculty members is greater than those employing full-time non-tenure-track faculty members; just over three-quarters of the programs had at least 1 part-time faculty member during 1987–88. The average number employed is also greater than for full-time non-tenure-track faculty members, as table 13 indicates, but only 10% of the programs in the sample employed 10 or more during 1987–88.

Variation in Faculty Size

On average, programs at four-year institutions have substantially larger numbers of full-time tenure-track faculty members than do those at two-year institutions (8.7 vs. 1.5). In addition, the average number of full-time tenure-track faculty members is more than three times as large in programs in very large institutions as in small institutions (11.6 vs. 3.1). And finally, programs offering courses in 6 or more languages have nearly twice as many full-time tenure-track faculty members as do those offering courses in 5 or fewer languages (11.5 vs. 6.0).

Among four-year institutions, highest degree granted and source of funding also affect the number of full-time tenure-track faculty members in foreign language programs. On average, four-year programs in public institutions have a substantially larger number of full-time tenure-track faculty members than programs in private institutions do (10.8 vs. 6.6). Moreover, four-year programs granting graduate degrees have approximately four times as many full-time tenure-track faculty members, on average, as programs without a major do (12.1 vs. 2.7). Programs granting no more than a BA fall midway between these two extremes, with an average of 6.8 full-time tenure-track faculty members. The findings just summarized indicate that programs in very large public institutions, granting graduate degrees, or offering courses in 6 or more languages have the largest number of full-time tenure-track faculty members. Because of the array of courses such programs offer, the need for a large full-time tenure-track faculty is self-evident.

For the sample as a whole, only institutional size and source of funding affect whether full-time non-tenure-track faculty members are present. In public institutions, the percentage of programs with at least 1 full-time non-tenure-track faculty member increases markedly as institutional size increases (from 37% at small and medium-sized institutions to 72% at very large institutions). In private institutions, by contrast, two-thirds or more of the programs have at least 1 full-time non-tenure-track faculty member, regardless of institutional size. Among four-year institutions, institutional type helps determine whether full-time non-tenure-track faculty members are in the program. In doctorate-granting institutions, the percentage of programs with at least 1 such faculty member is greater than in comprehensive or baccalaureate institutions (79% vs. 60%).

A variety of factors influence the number of part-time faculty members teaching in language programs. The average number increases as institutional size and the number of languages offered goes up (from 1.9 in small institutions to 5.6 in very large institutions, and from 2.0 in departments offering 1 or 2 languages to 7.3 in those offering 6 or more). The findings indicate that programs housed in very large institutions or offering courses in six or more languages have the largest number of part-time faculty members. Presumably, the need of these programs to offer introductory courses to large numbers of students and in an array of languages fosters reliance on part-timers. As noted earlier in this section, the same types of programs have the largest numbers of full-time tenure-track faculty members. Thus part-timers are not merely retained as a cheap substitute for full-time tenure-track teachers but are hired as a means of stretching finite resources.

Not surprisingly, four-year programs located in doctorate-granting institutions and granting graduate degrees account for the vast majority of programs with TAs. Of the programs in such institutions, 71% employed at least 1 TA in 1987–88, compared with 7% in comprehensive and baccalaureate institutions. Similarly, 86% of the programs granting a PhD employed TAs, in contrast to 7% of those granting no more than a BA. ²⁰ Among programs with at least 1 TA, the number increases along with the number of part-time faculty members employed by a department:

Although there is no difference in the mean number of TAs that programs with and without part-time faculty members have (14.4 vs. 14.1), there is a positive relation between the two numbers in programs that have at least 1 part-time faculty member. The figures shown here indicate that the average number of TAs increases as the number of part-time faculty members increases. This tendency differs from the pattern observed, in 1983–84, in English departments with graduate programs; in these, the number of part-time faculty members and the number of TAs were inversely related (Huber, “Structure” 16–17). Thus, while English departments tend to use TAs as a substitute for the temporary labor that part-time faculty members normally provide, foreign language programs do not. Instead, foreign language graduate programs that must provide instruction to large numbers of students employ both large numbers of part-timers and large numbers of TAs. These findings support the hypothesis outlined above that foreign language programs employ part-time faculty members because they have limited resources, but they are expected to offer a complex array of courses.

Percentage of Faculty Members in Major Status Groups

The top part of table 14 indicates the average percentage of a foreign language faculty that belongs to the four major status groups identified in the previous discussion. Among all faculty members in a program, an average of 40%–45% have full-time tenured positions and 50%–55% have full-time tenure-track positions. Further, an average of 20%–30% have part-time positions and 10%–15% have full-time non-tenure-track positions. The four measures of faculty composition vary together. Thus, as the percentage of all faculty members with full-time tenure-track appointments rises, the percentage with tenure also increases, while the percentage with non-tenure-track full- or part-time appointments decreases.

The middle rows of table 14 suggest that, on average, well over half the full-time faculty members in a program have PhD degrees. In only one-third of the programs have fewer than 50% of the faculty members completed the doctorate; 100% of all faculty members have PhDs in one quarter of the sampled programs. Also evident from table 14 is that, on average, the percentage of tenured faculty members and assistant professors with PhDs is greater than among all full-time faculty members, presumably because full-time non-tenure-track faculty members are least likely to have such degrees. In 58% of the programs, all tenured faculty members have PhDs, while all assistant professors have PhDs in 70%. ²¹

According to the survey findings, the percentage of native speakers on foreign language faculties is relatively high. (“Native speaker,” as used here, refers to people whose first language is the one they teach.) Only 7% of the programs in the sample have no native speakers among their full-time faculty members, while all faculty members are native speakers in 17% of the programs; the percentage exceeds one-half in 60% of the programs. The average, as the bottom rows of table 14 indicate, is 60% native speakers among a program's full-time faculty members. In contrast to the percentage of PhDs, the percentage of native speakers among tenured faculty members is not markedly higher than among all full-time faculty members. The median figures suggest that the percentage of assistant professors may be, however. Moreover, all assistant professors are native speakers in 42% of the programs, compared with 26% in the case of tenured faculty members. ²² At the very least, these findings suggest that junior faculty members are as likely to be native speakers as senior faculty members.

Variation in Faculty Composition

For the sample as a whole, two factors affect the percentage of faculty members with full-time tenure-track positions. The percentage is substantially higher in four-year than in two-year programs (61% vs. 23%). Whether an institution has a language requirement makes a difference primarily among two-year colleges, where the average percentage of all faculty members with full-time tenure-track positions is higher when such requirements exist (34% vs. 18%). Other factors play a role among four-year institutions. The percentage of faculty members with full-time tenure-track positions is higher, on average, in four-year programs in public institutions than in private institutions (67% vs. 55%). In addition, programs offering courses but no degree have the lowest percentage of faculty members with full-time tenure-track positions, while programs granting the PhD have the highest percentage (47% vs. 70%). ²³

These findings indicate that the percentage of all faculty members with full-time tenure-track positions is substantially higher among four-year than among two-year programs; by implication, the percentage of faculty members with part-time positions is lower in four-year programs. In addition, different factors affect the percentages in two-year and in four-year programs. Among two-year colleges, the small number of programs in institutions with language requirements have the largest percentages of faculty members with full-time tenure-track positions, while among four-year programs, PhD programs in public doctorate-granting institutions have the highest average percentage.

The average percentage of full-time faculty members with PhDs is almost three times as high among four-year programs as among two-year programs (74% vs. 25%). The differences among programs in different sized institutions are not as great, but the percentage of full-time faculty members with PhDs is substantially higher in programs in very large institutions than in small institutions (76% vs. 54%). Among four-year institutions, highest degree granted and type of language program also affect the percentage of full-time faculty members with PhDs. Both PhD-granting and specialized programs have higher average percentages of full-time faculty members with PhDs than do those that offer courses, but no degrees, and that are organized as inclusive programs (85% and 80% vs. 52% and 67%).

Key Determinants of Faculty Size and Composition

Although differing sets of factors affect various aspects of faculty size, two elements consistently play a role: institutional size and number of languages offered. As these increase, the number of full-time tenure-track faculty members tends to rise as well, as does the number of part-time faculty members and the percentage of four-year programs with at least 1 full-time non-tenure-track faculty member. Thus faculty size would appear to depend, in part, on the number of courses language programs must routinely offer, which is determined by institutional size and the number of languages they offer.

Faculty composition, in contrast, is most consistently related to institutional type. Four-year programs generally have larger percentages of faculty members with full-time tenure-track positions and of full-time faculty members with PhDs than two-year programs do. Among four-year programs, highest degree awarded plays the key role, with PhD-granting programs having the highest average percentages of faculty members with full-time tenure-track positions and of full-time faculty members with PhDs. These findings suggest that faculty composition, in contrast to size, depends more on institutional commitment to language study than on immediate staffing needs.

Faculty Role in Campus Governance

The 1987–89 survey investigated two aspects of foreign language faculty members' participation in campus governance: how many members were serving on campus committees at the time of the survey and whether any members had been part of the campus administration during the past five years. Thirty percent of the participating programs answered the second question in the affirmative, while 70% said no. The degree to which faculty members serve in the administration varies by department size, as the following figures indicate:

Foreign language programs with 11 or more full-time tenure-track faculty members are considerably more likely to have had departmental representatives serving in the campus administration than are those with fewer tenure-track faculty members. To some degree such a finding simply reflects the laws of probability (i.e., the larger a department, the greater the chances that one of its members will be part of the administration); it also suggests, however, that faculty members in large departments are more likely to serve in the administration because the size of their departments ensures them a more significant role in campus life.

The percentage of programs with at least 1 faculty member serving on major campus committees is as follows:

As the figures indicate, foreign language faculty members serve on educational policy or other campus committees more often than on the promotion and tenure committee. Moreover, programs that send faculty members to the educational policy committee are more likely, as well, to have representatives on the promotion and tenure committee: 55% do, compared with 25% of those programs without faculty members on the educational policy committee. Insofar as programs have faculty members serving on the three types of committees, the number doing so varies by committee. Programs generally have only one member on the promotion and tenure committee, an average of two on the educational policy committee, and an average of three on other committees.

The percentage of programs with at least 1 representative on the promotion and tenure committee increases as the number of full-time tenure-track faculty members in a program increases (from 34% in programs with 2 or fewer such faculty members to 70% in programs with 11 or more), while the percentage of programs with faculty members on the educational policy committee goes up as the number of part-time faculty members increases (from 74% for programs with 2 or fewer part-timers to 90% for programs with 6 or more). In addition, four-year programs are more likely than two-year programs to have representatives on the promotion and tenure committee (55% vs. 31%). Further, four-year programs in baccalaureate institutions are less likely to have faculty members on the promotion and tenure and educational policy committees than are programs in comprehensive or doctorate-granting institutions (37% and 65% vs. 58% and 85%).

Extent of and Support for Professional Travel

Travel Funds Received during 1987–88

Table 15 indicates that the percentage of programs in which faculty members received travel funds during 1987–88 varied considerably by faculty category. Thus part-time faculty members rarely received travel funds, while their tenured counterparts in almost all programs obtained them. Junior faculty members also received funds in the majority of programs, but full-time non-tenure-track faculty members received funds in only one-quarter of the programs.

The average number of faculty members receiving funds also varied by category, as the second and third columns of table 15 indicate. Among programs awarding funds, an average of 3 tenured faculty members were granted money, as were 2 junior faculty members. This average varies by faculty size; as the number of full-time tenure-track faculty members increases, so does the number of tenured and junior members receiving travel stipends (from 2.0 to 8.0 for tenured faculty members and from 2.0 to 3.9 for junior faculty members). In the minority of programs giving funds to full-time non-tenure-track faculty members, 58% gave them to 1 and 28% gave them to 2 or 3. Of the few programs awarding travel funds to part-time faculty members, 76% gave them to only 1. ²⁴

If one ignores the number of faculty members receiving funds, whether programs award those funds depends on faculty size. The percentage of programs granting travel funds to tenured and junior faculty members increases as the number of full-time tenure-track faculty members rises. The differences are most dramatic for the junior faculty category; among programs with 2 or fewer full-time tenure-track faculty members, 29% granted travel funds to at least 1 junior faculty member in 1987–88, compared with 86% of the programs with 11 or more tenure-track faculty members. ²⁵ The likelihood that junior faculty members will receive travel funds varies by institutional type as well as by faculty size. Nineteen percent of all two-year programs granted stipends to junior faculty members during 1987–88, compared with 67% of the four-year programs. The difference stems primarily from the fact that two-year programs have far fewer junior faculty members than four-year programs; only 10% have one or more assistant professors, compared with 77% of the four-year programs sampled.

Attendance at Professional Meetings

According to the survey findings, attendance at professional meetings is the norm for foreign language faculty members, a sign that most are concerned with the latest developments in their fields. Sixty-three percent of the respondents reported that at least half the faculty members in their programs had gone to local or regional conferences during 1987–88; only 6% said that no one had participated in such events. National or international meetings were somewhat less frequently attended; 14% of the respondents reported that no faculty members had attended such meetings, and 54% said at least half of their members had. Nonetheless, frequency of attendance at the two types of meetings is linked, as the following figures indicate:

As the number of faculty members attending local or regional meetings increases, so does the percentage of programs in which at least half the faculty members took part in national or international gatherings during 1987–88. This comparison suggests that attendance at professional conferences is not governed by the scope of the professional association sponsoring the event. Rather, some foreign language programs encourage attendance at professional meetings, whether local or international, while others do not. Thus, in 77% of programs in which no faculty members attended local or regional meetings, none attended national or international meetings either. Similarly, in 60% of the programs in which all faculty members attended local or regional sessions, most or all went to national or international meetings as well.

Attendance at national or international conferences depended on whether programs granted travel funds to tenure-track faculty members in 1987–88. Thus, in 58% of the programs granting such travel funds, at least half the departmental faculty members attended meetings. The equivalent figure for programs not granting travel funds is 27%. By the same token, in 62% of the programs granting travel funds to junior faculty members, at least half the faculty members participated in national or international gatherings, compared with 43% of those not granting travel funds to junior faculty members. These findings suggest that, for obvious reasons, the availability of travel allowances fosters attendance at national and international meetings but has little effect on attendance at local or regional meetings.

Travel Abroad

In almost all the programs in the sample, at least 1 faculty member had traveled, during the past five years, to a country in which the language he or she teaches is spoken; only 5% of the respondents reported that no faculty members had traveled to such countries. On average, 5 of the faculty members teaching in a program had been abroad, with the number ranging from 2 to 9 in half of the programs under study.

The number of faculty members traveling abroad varies by faculty size. In programs with 2 or fewer full-time tenure-track faculty members, 3 faculty members had been abroad, on average, in the past five years, compared with an average of 15 in programs with 11 or more faculty members. The difference in the number of faculty members traveling abroad in programs with and without part-time faculty members is limited (7.0 vs. 5.3), but among programs with at least 1 such faculty member, the average number of travelers rises as the number of part-time faculty members increases (from 4.9 for programs with 1 or 2 part-time faculty members to 9.8 for programs with 6 or more).

Fall 1988 Enrollments

An obvious, though not infallible, measure of program strength is large enrollments in introductory and advanced courses. Therefore, the survey examined fall 1988 enrollments in five types of courses in some detail. The first column of table 16 indicates that virtually all programs in the sample offered first-year language classes, and the vast majority also offered second-year language courses. Approximately two-thirds offered advanced courses in language or literature and culture, while courses taught in English were available in just under 50%. The last two rows of table 16 present figures for introductory enrollments (i.e., first- and second-year enrollments combined) and total enrollments in all courses, except those taught in English.

The three righthand columns display average enrollment numbers for programs providing data for the fall 1988 term. The mean figures are considerably higher than the median because a few programs at the upper end of the distribution have very large enrollments. Nonetheless, the differences by type of course are similar. Average enrollments in first- and second-year language courses are substantially higher than those in other types of courses. Enrollments in advanced language and advanced literature or culture courses are similar, albeit lower than enrollments in other types of courses. Average enrollments for courses taught in English lag behind those in first- and second-year language courses but surpass those in advanced courses.

Fall 1988 Enrollments in Two-Year Programs

Among two-year programs, enrollments in three types of language courses—first-year, second-year, and introductory—are closely related. Although average first-year enrollments are considerably larger than second-year enrollments, both tend to vary by a related set of institutional and departmental factors. First-year language enrollments increase as the number of languages offered and the number of part-time faculty members employed increase.

Thus average enrollments are highest in programs having 6 or more part-time faculty members or offering 6 or more languages (728 vs. 130 for programs with 2 or fewer part-time faculty members; 763 for programs offering 6 or more languages, compared with 46 for programs offering 1 or 2 languages). Programs with both these characteristics are more prevalent at large institutions, where first-year language enrollments are also higher than at smaller institutions.

Enrollments in second-year language courses also go up as the size of the student body increases (from an average of 42 for programs in small institutions to 173 for programs in very large institutions). In addition, the number of full-time tenure-track faculty members in a program influences the size of second-year enrollments; programs with more than two such faculty members tend to have higher enrollments than those with fewer tenure-track faculty members (141 vs. 75). ²⁶ Programs supervised by deans who view language instruction as indispensable or essential also have larger second-year enrollments, on average, than those supervised by deans with less positive views (135 vs. 55).

When enrollments in both first- and second-year language courses are considered together, they vary by two factors. As the number of part-time faculty members increases, so do average introductory course enrollments (from 171 for programs with no part-time faculty members to 888 for programs with 6 or more). The key to variation in introductory enrollments, however, is the number of languages offered. ²⁷ Average enrollments in programs offering 6 or more languages are sixteen times as large as those in programs offering 1 or 2 languages (909 vs. 57). To some degree this difference is a function of the fact that two-year programs offering more languages provide more language classes and, therefore, have higher enrollments. But if one controls for the difference in number of languages, average introductory language enrollments in programs offering 6 or more languages remain as high as or higher than those in programs offering fewer languages. The following figures make this clear.

Thus the fact that two-year programs offering 6 or more languages have higher enrollments than do programs offering fewer languages is not only a result of courses being offered in more languages.

Table 17 presents average first-year, second-year, and introductory language enrollments in two-year programs for major languages and language groups. The figures indicate that first-year language enrollments are consistently higher than second-year enrollments. In addition, the three commonly taught languages (i.e., Spanish, French, and German) have the highest average introductory enrollments. Finally, at least for the programs in the sample, average introductory enrollments in Slavic languages in fall 1988 lagged behind those in Japanese, in part because more two-year programs offered second-year courses in Japanese than in Slavic languages.

Fall 1988 Enrollments in Four-Year Programs

Among four-year programs, the size of first-year language enrollments varies by a number of institutional and departmental factors. The first row of table 18 indicates that as the number of tenure-track faculty members increases, average enrollments in first-year classes rise markedly. Four-year programs in public institutions also have higher first-year language course enrollments, on average, than do those in private institutions (442 vs. 211). Two other factors are related, albeit in a limited way, to the size of first-year language enrollments. Inclusive programs have higher enrollments, on average, than specialized programs do (398 vs. 267). In addition, programs with at least 1 part-time faculty member have somewhat higher enrollments in their first-year language courses than do programs without such faculty members (349.3 vs. 232.5). Among programs with part-time faculty members, average first-year enrollments go up significantly as the number of part-time faculty members increases (see first row of table 19).

Enrollments in second-year language courses vary by fewer factors. The number of full-time tenure-track faculty members is again the most influential; as table 18 shows, average enrollments in second-year courses increase as the number of full-time tenure-track faculty members increases. As is the case with first-year enrollments, programs with at least 1 part-time faculty member have somewhat larger enrollments than do programs without such faculty members (199.6 vs. 106.6). Among programs with part-time faculty members, average second-year enrollments increase as the number of part-time faculty members increases (see table 19).

The third row of table 18 shows a sharp jump in average enrollments in advanced language courses as the number of full-time tenure-track faculty members goes from 2 or fewer to 11 or more. Similarly, table 19 indicates that among programs with part-time faculty members, advanced language course enrollments increase as the number of part-time faculty members increases; programs with and without such faculty members have approximately equal enrollments, however (81.6 vs. 53.9). As the size of the institutions housing language programs increases, average enrollments in advanced language courses also increase considerably (from 35 for programs in small institutions to 113 for programs in very large institutions). The effect of institutional size and tenure-track faculty size on enrollments in advanced language classes is greater than the effect of number of part-time faculty members. ²⁹

Enrollments in advanced courses in literature or culture taught in the target language vary primarily by the number of full-time tenure-track faculty members. The last row of table 18 indicates that these enrollments increase as the number of full-time tenure-track faculty members increases; from an average of 19 for programs with 2 or fewer to an average of 156 for programs with 11 or more. Enrollments in advanced literature or culture courses also vary somewhat by the number of languages offered; programs offering 6 or more languages tend to have higher enrollments than do those offering fewer languages (92.7 versus 69.9).

Enrollments in courses taught in English vary by factors different from those discussed thus far. Enrollments in such courses rise as the size of the institutions in which programs are housed increases: from an average of 24 for programs in small institutions to an average of 159 for programs in very large institutions. These enrollments also differ by highest degree granted, with institutions granting more advanced degrees having larger enrollments (the averages are 59.4 for programs granting BAs only, 141.7 for programs granting no more than an MA, and 169.1 for programs granting PhDs). In sum, foreign language programs awarding graduate degrees and housed in large institutions attract the largest number of students to their literature-in-translation courses.

Table 20 shows average four-year enrollments in different types of courses for major languages and language groups. For all language categories listed, with the partial exception of Chinese, average enrollments in first-year, second-year, and advanced language courses are progressively smaller. Although such gradual decline may be suggestive, the cross-sectional figures presented here are insufficient to draw conclusions about attrition as one moves from one level of language instruction to another. Assessing such rates requires information through time. ³⁰ Simple data on enrollments through time are not adequate, however, since the students in one year's second-year classes need not be the same as those in the previous year's first-year classes. Rather, assessing attrition requires information on individual students' course-taking patterns over time.

Two differences among language categories are worthy of note. First, although average enrollments in first-year courses in Slavic languages are clearly lower than those in Japanese, Slavic enrollments are approximately equal to those in Japanese at the advanced levels. Second, average enrollments in advanced courses in Chinese and Japanese are surprisingly high compared with the enrollments in second-year courses. The ratio of average second-year enrollments to advanced language course enrollments is 0.8 to 1 for Chinese, 1.1 to 1 for Japanese, and 1.8 to 1 for all languages. These findings suggest that students taking a second year of Chinese or Japanese may be unusually likely to take an advanced course thereafter. Such a conclusion is highly speculative, however, given the cross-sectioned nature of the data.

Percentage of All Enrollments at Introductory and Advanced Levels

Preceding discussion has suggested that most enrollments in foreign language courses are at the introductory level. Yet, in theory, a balanced program offers courses for both advanced and beginning students; and programs in which introductory enrollments are less dominant are likely to be regarded as particularly strong. As a first step in assessing this hypothesis, the percentage of all enrollments in fall 1988 (including those in literature-in-translation courses) accounted for by enrollments in first- and second-year language courses was calculated for each four-year program in the sample. ³¹ As expected, the percentage tends to be high; the percentage of enrollments at the introductory level is below 50% in only 16% of the four-year programs in the sample. On average, 75% of a program's total enrollments in fall 1988 were in introductory language classes; for half the four-year programs, the percentage ranges from 59% to 86% and is 100% for 6% of the programs.

For 27% of the four-year programs in the sample, the percentage of all enrollments that are at the introductory level is 60% or less; when these programs are compared with programs in which the percentage is higher, differing enrollment patterns emerge. As one would expect, programs in which 60% or fewer of all enrollments are at the introductory level have lower average enrollments in first- and second-year language courses than other programs. Table 21 indicates that their average enrollments in advanced language and literature-culture courses are no higher, however. Rather, enrollments in literature-in-translation courses are strikingly higher for programs in which 60% or fewer of all enrollments are at the introductory level.

These findings suggest that four-year programs with relatively low introductory enrollments do not offer advanced courses to larger numbers of students; instead, they offer, perhaps in compensation, well-attended literature-in-translation courses. Such programs ( n =78, or 20% of the total) are distinctive in a number of respects: just over half are in institutions with 15,000 or more students; nine in ten are specialized programs, with most organized as language groups; two-thirds are in doctorate-granting institutions; and 64% offer graduate degrees. In short, the programs with relatively low introductory, but high literature-in-translation, enrollments are most likely to be specialized language programs offering graduate degrees in large doctorate-granting institutions. In this context, literature-in-translation courses may provide access to foreign literatures to students who are interested in them but are unable, for various reasons, to acquire the language proficiency needed to read the original texts.

Because of the special role played by literature-in-translation courses, it seemed reasonable to disregard them in assessing the distinctiveness of foreign language programs in which introductory enrollments are less dominant. Accordingly, a percentage of all enrollments in advanced courses was derived by adding enrollments in advanced language courses to enrollments in literature or culture courses taught in the target language and dividing the sum by the total enrollment in all courses in fall 1988. The resulting figure represents a direct measure of the relative emphasis placed on advanced courses and, therefore, also provides a direct measure of one aspect of program strength. Twenty-two percent of the programs in the sample had no enrollments at all in advanced courses; since most are two-year programs, more detailed analysis dealt only with four-year programs. ³² Among programs offering advanced courses in fall 1988, 16% of total enrollments, on average, were in such courses. For half the programs, the percentage ranges from 9% to 23%; it exceeds a third in only 10%.

The percentage of all four-year enrollments in advanced courses varies by several factors. On average, the percentage is higher in private than in public institutions (19.9 vs. 16.2) and in specialized than in inclusive programs (19.7 vs. 15.6). Further, the few four-year programs in institutions without language requirements have, on average, a higher percentage of their enrollments in advanced courses than do programs in institutions with language requirements (24.8 vs. 16.7). Faculty size and composition also affect the percentage of enrollments in advanced courses; the percentage increases as the number of full-time tenure-track faculty members increases (from 14.0 for programs with 2 or fewer such faculty members to 20.6 for programs with 11 or more) but decreases as the percentage of full-time faculty members who are native speakers increases. ³³

The percentage of enrollments in advanced courses is as high as 25% in only one of the sample subgroups (programs in institutions without language requirements) and does not exceed 20% for most others. Thus the percentage is relatively low in all circumstances. Whether it is lower than similar percentages in other humanities disciplines is not clear. Figures from the MLA's 1983–84 survey of English programs allow one to estimate the percentage of all fall 1983 four-year English enrollments that are in upper-division courses. Of all upper- and lower-division English enrollments in writing and literature, 22% were accounted for by upper-division courses in fall 1983. The equivalent figure for foreign languages, 20%, is essentially the same. ³⁴ It appears, therefore, that the heavy emphasis on introductory courses in foreign language programs may not be atypical for humanities disciplines.

Enrollments per Hundred Students

In the preceding discussion of variation in enrollments, institutional and departmental characteristics have been assumed to play a role in determining levels. In large part this assumption is made because the data at hand are cross-sectional. That is, maximum levels of fall 1988 enrollments, which are being considered here, were limited by the number of courses and sections offered that term—figures that were, in turn, determined at an earlier date by the number of faculty members and other resources expected to be available for that term. Thus, within a single term, enrollment levels are influenced as much by institutional and departmental constraints as by student preference.

Even in the longer run, student interest in certain types of courses is less important in determining enrollment levels than it often seems to be. Although student demand is generally considered the best means of convincing the administration to allocate more full- or part-time positions to a foreign language program—with the implication that enrollments determine faculty size rather than vice versa—the rationale is accepted only when ample resources are available. In difficult economic times, such as those many institutions are experiencing at present, student demand may carry little weight, and departments may be told to make do with current resources. As a result, if departments do not have the staff to meet student demand and cannot enlarge classes further, they must turn students away, thereby lowering their total enrollments for given terms. Therefore, enrollments ultimately depend on faculty size, which is decided by the campus administration. In some cases, student interest plays a role in these decisions, but in others, institutional constraints and administrators' views of certain fields are paramount. In the light of these considerations, it is reasonable to treat foreign language enrollment levels as dependent on institutional and departmental characteristics. ³⁵

The findings on fall 1988 enrollments reviewed above suggest that large enrollments, and by implication program strength, depend most directly on the number of full-time tenure-track faculty members a program has. This figure, as well as the number of part-time faculty members, depends on institutional size, as earlier discussion revealed. Thus foreign language programs in large institutions are likely to have larger faculties and, therefore, higher course enrollments, than programs in smaller institutions. Enrollment size is not a mere function of the number of students available to take courses, however, as is evident from a number of findings. First, while large faculties are more prevalent in large institutions, they are not confined to them. As the numbers in parentheses in table 22 indicate, four-year foreign language programs with varying numbers of faculty members are found at institutions of all sizes. Second, among institutions of similar size, average enrollments vary by the number of full-time tenure-track faculty members a program has. This is clear from the mean enrollment figures presented in table 22. ³⁶

Subgroup averages, such as those in table 22, can be misleading; therefore, a measure of enrollments that takes institutional size into account was developed for individual programs: the number of enrollments in foreign language courses per hundred students enrolled at an institution. ³⁷ Such a measure puts enrollments in a different perspective; rather than focus exclusively on their absolute level, it summarizes the number of students taking language courses relative to the number of potential enrollees (i.e., all students at the institution). On average, the number of enrollments per hundred students is 4.8, with half the programs in the sample having between 1.9 and 9.5 enrollments per hundred students. The figure exceeds 15 in 12% of the programs and is less than 1 in 14%.

Among two-year programs, enrollments per hundred students are affected by the number of languages offered; two-year programs offering 6 or more languages have more than twice as many enrollments per hundred students as programs offering 1 or 2 languages (8.4 vs. 3.3). When this finding is added to the earlier finding that programs offering 6 or more languages have the highest absolute enrollment levels, it is clear that such programs excel on both measures of program strength. Two-year programs in small institutions also have larger enrollments per hundred students than those in larger institutions (8.2 vs. 4.7); though their absolute enrollment levels tend to be lower than those of programs in larger institutions, such programs attract a larger proportion of their student body to their foreign language classes.

The key source of variation in four-year enrollments per hundred students is institutional size; rather than increase (as is the case for some course-specific enrollments), enrollments per hundred students decrease as institutional size goes up (from an average of 15.0 for programs in small institutions to an average of 3.9 for programs in very large institutions). A similar reversal is not evident for number of full-time tenure-track faculty members, which is also an important source of variation in enrollments per hundred students. ³⁸ Like course-specific enrollments, average enrollments per hundred students rise as the number of full-time tenure-track faculty members expands (from 5.5 for programs with 2 or fewer to 10.9 for programs with 11 or more). These findings, along with those discussed earlier, indicate that a large full-time tenure-track faculty leads to both large enrollments in specific types of courses and large enrollments per hundred students. A large student body, in contrast, ensures high enrollments in specific types of courses but not high enrollments per hundred students. In fact, foreign language programs in small and medium-sized four-year institutions appear to attract a bigger proportion of their student body than those in very large institutions.

In addition to varying by faculty and institutional size, four-year enrollments per hundred students differ by institutional type and type of language program. On average, programs in baccalaureate institutions have higher enrollments per hundred students than do those in doctorate-granting institutions (14.0 vs. 5.2), while inclusive programs have higher enrollments than specialized programs (11.9 vs. 4.6). In short, the highest enrollments per hundred students are in four-year programs that are inclusive, have large numbers of full-time tenure-track faculty members, or are located in small baccalaureate institutions with language requirements. Thus, insofar as enrollment per hundred students serves as a reliable indicator of program strength, programs with these characteristics may be among the strongest. Less strong programs, with the lowest enrollments per hundred students, are specialized, have smaller faculties, or are located in very large doctorate-granting institutions. Of course, such programs cannot be judged solely by their undergraduate programs, since graduate education is often an important part of their mission.

As preceding discussion has indicated, programs in institutions with foreign language requirements are distinct in two ways: they have a lower percentage of all enrollments in advanced courses, and, if they are inclusive programs, their enrollments per hundred students are higher. This pattern suggests that language requirements tend to increase introductory enrollments but have little effect on enrollments in advanced courses. The figures in table 23 confirm this. Four-year programs in institutions with language requirements have higher average first- and second-year enrollments than programs in institutions with no language requirements. Average enrollments in advanced language courses and literature or culture courses taught in the target language are equivalent for the two types of programs, however. According to these findings, requirements appear to ensure that more students receive elementary language instruction, but they do not boost the number of students seeking the proficiency that advanced courses provide.

Change in the Size of Language and Literature Enrollments

In answering the question about whether enrollments in language courses had changed during the preceding three years (i.e., between 1985 and 1988), the largest percentage of respondents to the 1987–89 survey said that their enrollments had grown. The following figures make this clear:

Enrollments in language courses have increased in two out of three programs in the sample, while enrollments in literature courses have remained stable or increased in nine out of ten; declining enrollments are uncommon in both types of courses.

Whether language enrollments increased between 1985 and 1988 varies by only one of the institutional and departmental factors considered: the percentage of programs reporting growth in enrollments increases as the number of languages offered increases (from 56% for programs offering 1 or 2 languages to 85% for programs offering 6 or more). Growth in literature enrollments is affected by several other dimensions of program size. The percentage of programs reporting growth in enrollments increases as institutional size increases (from 30% for programs in small institutions to 59% for programs in very large institutions) and as the number of full-time tenure-track faculty members in a program rises (from 32% for programs with 2 or fewer full-time tenure-track faculty members to 59% for programs with 11 or more). Further, programs with teaching assistants are more likely to have experienced growth in their literature enrollments than are programs without them (59% vs. 38%).

In sum, recent growth in language enrollments is most prevalent in programs offering 6 or more languages, while growth in literature enrollments occurs most often in programs in large institutions and with large tenure-track faculties. The finding that programs are more likely to have experienced recent growth in their literature enrollments if teaching assistants are present assumes some importance if one conceives of TAs as a sign that a graduate program is active and well established. Under these circumstances, the presence of an active graduate program may foster growth in literature enrollments at the undergraduate level, presumably because graduate foreign language departments place more emphasis on the study of literature.

In addition to indicating whether enrollments had grown overall, respondents specified those languages in which enrollment growth or decline was especially marked. Of the programs responding, 73% reported growth in language enrollments for particular languages and 39% reported an upswing in literature enrollments. At the same time, 24% reported declining enrollments in language courses, and 15% noted a downswing in literature enrollments. As with enrollments overall, growth in language and literature enrollments in particular languages was more prevalent than decline; approximately three times as many respondents reported growth as reported decline in one or more specific languages. ³⁹ Growth in language enrollments in particular languages was reported more frequently than growth in literature enrollments, while decline in language and literature enrollments for particular languages was reported with approximately equal frequency.

Table 24 presents the number of programs reporting enrollment growth or decline in specific languages and language groups. For most of the eight major languages and language groups identified in the table, the numerical frequency with which growth or decline was reported can be rank-ordered as follows: growth in language enrollments, growth in literature enrollments, decline in language enrollments, decline in literature enrollments. Moreover, if a relatively large number of programs reported enrollment growth in one of the major languages or language groups, a relatively large number also tended to report enrollment decline. Thus the language for which enrollment growth in language and literature courses is most frequently reported is Spanish. This language is also among the three languages for which enrollment decline is most frequently reported. Similarly, the language group—Near Eastern—for which enrollment growth is least frequently reported is among those for which enrollment decline is least often reported. The findings suggest that, with a few exceptions, enrollments in some languages are more volatile than those in others. As a result, the languages most often experiencing growth between 1985 and 1988 also most frequently experienced decline.

The picture emerging from these findings is one dominated by growth in enrollments during the 1985–88 period. Although enrollment decline in specific languages was more common in literature than in language courses, only one-quarter of the respondents reported a decline in enrollments in one or more specific languages. When one considers change in enrollments generally, independent of the specific languages offered by a program, the picture is even more positive. Only one in ten of the sampled programs reported an overall decline in literature enrollments; only one in twenty did so for language enrollments. In contrast, two out of three respondents reported increased enrollments for language courses, and almost one in two reported higher enrollments for literature courses.

These findings are congruent with those of the national enrollment surveys conducted by the MLA (Brod) but in sharp contrast to conclusions recently reached by Richard Lambert. Using data from several sources but relying primarily on data from a sample of fifty-seven institutions, Lambert asserts that “the general increase indicated by the reports on national trends turns out not to be characteristic of all or even most institutions or institutional types.” Lambert goes on to contend that “except for Japanese, the less commonly taught languages seem to be declining in enrollments almost everywhere.” He also suggests that Spanish enrollments are stable, at best, and those in French and German are declining in many institutions (54–56). The findings reported here confirm only one of these conclusions: that enrollments in German are falling in many institutions, though this trend has begun to reverse itself since 1988 (Brod and Huber).

In all other respects, the data presented here differ from the conclusions Lambert reached. ⁴⁰ The contrast is particularly striking because Lambert focuses most of his attention on language, rather than literature, enrollments, where recent growth in enrollments is so clear-cut. It may be that Lambert was correct in speculating that discrepancies between reported national trends and his findings might result from the “nonrepresentativeness” of his sample (54). While the sample used in the MLA's 1987–89 survey is also unrepresentative in some respects, the fact that the findings emerging from it are congruent with national trends, rather than at variance with them, gives one confidence in the results.

Foreign Language Majors and Degree Programs

In two-year colleges, degree programs in specific humanities disciplines are unusual. ⁴¹ Thus it is not surprising that only eight of the respondents from two-year departments (7.5%) said their institutions granted associate degrees in language. Four said their institutions granted AA degrees in “foreign languages,” while the responses of the others suggested that their colleges granted degrees in specific languages (usually Spanish or French). Of the two-year departments that grant AA degrees in languages, five awarded at least 1 such degree in 1988–89. The number granted ranged from 1 to 11, with an average of 3.5. In short, the number of two-year departments granting AA degrees in languages is quite small, as is the number of degrees conferred during 1988–89 by the few departments in which degrees can be earned.

Four-Year Degree Programs

The first two columns of table 25 show the percentage and number of four-year institutions in the sample with bachelor's degree programs in specific languages or language groups. ⁴² The third column gives the percentage of institutions with degree programs out of all those offering courses in a language. Degrees in the following seven languages are offered by more than 5% of the institutions in the sample: Spanish, French, German, Russian, Italian, Latin, and Greek. Fewer than 5% of the four-year institutions in the sample offer a bachelor's degree program in any one of other major language and language group categories listed in table 25. Finally, 14% of the institutions in the sample offer degree programs in “other languages.” The number is considerably larger than usual for this residual category because degree programs that encompass more than one language or language group are included. Thus, 5% of the institutions offer four-year degrees in modern or foreign languages, while 4% offer degrees in Romance languages. A few institutions also have dual language majors or award education degrees in specific languages or clusters of languages.

In general, the percentage of institutions with four-year degree programs increases along with the number of institutions offering courses in a language. Thus the three most commonly taught languages—Spanish, French, and German—are also those in which the highest percentage of institutions offer bachelors's degrees; 60% to 75% of the institutions offering courses in these languages also offer degrees. Russian, also among the seven most frequently taught languages, has the next highest percentage of institutions offering degree programs (44%). ⁴³ Except for Italian, Latin, and Greek, the remainder of the major languages and language groups in table 25 form the basis for degree programs in 16% or fewer of the institutions offering courses in them. ⁴⁴ Chinese and Japanese are among the languages for which degree programs are infrequent, even though institutions offer courses in both about as often as in Greek and Latin. General degree programs in Asian and East Asian languages are also considerably less widespread than general programs in classics are (10 vs. 45). These findings suggest that Chinese and Japanese are widely offered but usually on an ad hoc basis rather than as part of organized degree programs.

Majors and Degrees Granted

Degree-granting four-year language departments in the sample reported having an average of 12 junior majors, with half reporting between 6 and 26 majors. BA degree recipients tend to be less numerous; departments reported having 8, on average. Fifty percent said they granted between 3 and 18 degrees in 1988–89. When the number of junior majors and degree recipients is combined, the total number of junior and senior majors in 1988–89 is 20, on average, with half of the departments reporting a total of 10 to 47 junior and senior majors. Since number of majors represents another measure of program strength, the findings suggest that departments with more than 50 majors may be considered particularly strong.

The total number of majors reported by degree-granting four-year departments varies by three factors. As the number of full-time tenure-track faculty members increases, the average number of majors grows markedly (from 11.2 for programs with 2 or fewer full-time tenure-track faculty members to 68.4 for programs with 11 or more). In addition, the number of majors is usually larger in departments offering 6 or more languages than in departments offering fewer (53.3 vs. 32.2). The number of majors a department has also tends to rise as the number of part-time faculty members increases (from 24.1 for programs without part-time faculty members to 63.0 for programs with 6 or more). ⁴⁵ The link between number of part-time faculty members and total number of majors lends support to the hypothesis advanced earlier that part-time faculty members are hired not to relieve full-time tenure-track faculty members of the need to teach introductory language sections but to handle curricular demands that full-time faculty members cannot. The fact that there are more part-timers in departments with many majors suggests that the full-time tenure-track faculty cannot staff both the advanced courses that majors require and the introductory language sections that must be taught each term.

Table 26 shows the average number of junior majors, BA degree recipients, and total junior and senior majors in degree programs in major languages and language groups. The averages suggest that the number of junior majors and degree recipients in any given degree program tends to be small. The total number of junior and senior majors is usually also small, ranging from 3 to 17, on average. ⁴⁶ The first two columns of the table indicate that in each group listed, except Russian and Slavic languages, the average number of junior majors is higher than the number of degree recipients. This pattern is similar to that observed earlier for all junior majors and degree recipients in a department.

Contrary to the pattern observed elsewhere, degree programs in the three commonly taught languages do not have the most majors. The average numbers for Spanish and French are larger than for most other degree programs but are smaller than those for Asian languages. Degree programs in Near Eastern languages have the smallest number of majors, on average. The number of degree programs in both Asian and Near Eastern languages is small; thus the findings for these groups must be treated with caution. Nonetheless, it is worth noting that the data for Near Eastern languages are consistent with the small number of degree programs in these languages, while the large number of majors in Asian languages is unexpected, in the light of the relatively few degree programs in these languages. Their apparent success in attracting majors suggests the need to investigate why there are not more Asian language degree programs, since findings reported earlier indicated that courses in these languages are widely offered and enrollments are equivalent to those in classical and Slavic languages.

Controlling for Size: Number of Majors per Thousand Students

The findings reported above indicate that the number of majors a department has, and therefore to some degree its strength, is most directly related to the size of its full-time tenure-track faculty and, more indirectly, to the size of the student body. Such findings, however, say little about relative rather than absolute numbers of majors. That is, they do not indicate how strong a department is, given the resources at its disposal. Or, put differently, a department may not have many majors in the abstract but may have a significant number in relation to the number of potential majors at its institution. To assess the relative numbers of majors, one needs a measure of the pool of potential majors. Dividing the total number of junior and senior majors by the number of students enrolled yields the number of majors per thousand students and gives some indication of a language department's success in recruiting majors from its local pool of potential majors. ⁴⁷ Although the number of majors per thousand students varies widely, it is modest in most departments: 2.2 on average; it ranges from 0.95 to 5.6 in half the four-year language departments granting BAs. In 26% of the departments, the number of majors per thousand students is less than 1; in 14% it exceeds 10.

Regression analysis reveals that four factors are linked to the number of majors per thousand students. Departments in baccalaureate institutions have a good many more majors per thousand students than do those in comprehensive or doctorate-granting institutions (13.2 vs. 3.6). The number of majors per thousand students is also considerably higher in departments in small institutions than in very large institutions (13.5 vs. 1.9). Further, departments in institutions without language requirements have twice as many majors per thousand students as do those in institutions with requirements (9.0 vs. 4.5). This is congruent with findings reported earlier, which indicated that institutions with language requirements had high language enrollments per hundred students but a relatively low percentage of their total enrollments in advanced courses. Thus the link between language requirements and majors per thousand students lends further support to the hypothesis that language requirements increase introductory language enrollments but do not ensure greater interest in advanced study.

In some institutional settings, the number of majors per thousand students varies by the size of a language department's full-time tenure-track faculty. In comprehensive and doctorate-granting institutions the number of language majors per thousand students increases as the number of full-time tenure-track faculty members grows (from 3.1 and 1.4 for programs with five or fewer full-time tenure-track faculty members to 6.5 and 4.1 for programs with eleven or more). The same is true in baccalaureate institutions, though the differences are not significant, largely because small foreign language faculties are the norm. In sum, the number of majors per thousand students is smallest in departments with few full-time tenure-track faculty members or in departments in very large doctorate-granting institutions with language requirements. The figure is highest, in contrast, in departments in small baccalaureate institutions without language requirements. When examined in terms of majors per thousand students, departments in such four-year institutions, therefore, are more likely than others to be strong.

The relations between institutional size, faculty size, and number of majors per thousand students are strikingly similar to those observed for another measure of program strength: the number of enrollments per hundred students in four-year institutions. Table 27 summarizes the relations. ⁴⁸ It shows that both the number of majors per thousand students and enrollments per hundred students consistently increase as faculty size increases, while they decrease as institutional size increases. Thus average enrollments and numbers of majors are highest in departments with 6 or more full-time tenure-track faculty members in small institutions and lowest in those with 10 or fewer full-time tenure-track faculty members in very large institutions. Insofar as program strength can be measured by the proportion of an institution's students that language departments serve, it seems fair to conclude that strong programs are likely to have two characteristics: location in a small institution and a large number of full time tenure-track faculty members.

Characteristics of Strong Language Programs

One of the purposes of the 1987–89 survey of foreign language programs, as noted in the introduction to this article, was to describe selected characteristics of strong language programs. Several have been pinpointed in the preceding pages. Taken together, they do not provide a single description of a strong program; rather, two clusters of related features were discerned. Each cluster tends to be found in different types of programs, suggesting that program strength has several distinct dimensions. This conclusion must be qualified in one important respect: all indicators of program strength considered here were exhibited by four-year programs with large full-time tenure-track faculties.

The strength of two-year programs, because they are different from four-year programs in so many respects, must be assessed independently. Two of the measures discussed applied to two-year programs: level of enrollments in introductory language courses, and enrollments per hundred students. Data analysis revealed that average enrollments in both first- and second-year language courses were highest in two-year programs offering 6 or more languages. Such programs also made up the majority of the few two-year programs with enrollments in advanced courses. In addition, the number of languages offered by two-year programs is linked to enrollments per hundred students; these, too, are highest in programs offering 6 or more languages, confirming the apparent strength of such programs. To a considerable degree such strength can be ascribed to institutional context, as initial discussion made clear (see p. 10). Programs offering 6 or more languages differ from other two-year programs in two respects: almost all are in large institutions (i.e., with more than 5,000 students), and close to two-thirds are overseen by campus administrators who view language study as essential to a well-rounded education. ⁴⁹ It may be that the resources needed to mount and sustain a diverse and robust two-year language program are available only under such circumstances.

The percentage of all four-year enrollments in advanced courses was identified as an indicator of program strength. Data analysis revealed that the percentage is highest in programs that are specialized, in programs that have relatively large numbers of full-time tenure-track faculty members, many of whom are not native speakers, or in programs that are in private institutions without language requirements.

Another characteristic of program strength discussed here is the level of enrollment in various types of courses. Enrollments in advanced literature or culture courses in the target language varied markedly by the number of full-time tenure-track faculty members a program has. Enrollments in three types of language courses (i.e., first-year, second-year, advanced) are also highest in programs with large numbers of full-time tenure-track faculty members, though enrollments in these courses also varied by the number of part-time faculty members. Like enrollments, the number of majors a four-year program has can be thought of as a measure of its strength. Programs with many majors are much like those with large enrollments: they have large numbers of full-time tenure-track and part-time faculty members and offer courses in six or more languages. Regression analysis revealed that the number of full-time tenure-track faculty members in a program is of considerably more importance for large numbers of course takers and majors than other factors. Insofar as large numbers are a sign of a strong program, therefore, the size of the full-time tenure-track faculty is a key to strength.

To the extent that program strength can be measured by numbers, it should not be defined solely by absolute numbers; relative numbers, or the proportion of students in the available pool that are being served, are equally significant. Examination of enrollments per hundred students allows the assessment of program strength from this relative perspective. Previous discussion indicated that the programs with the largest enrollments per hundred students differed in most respects from those with the largest absolute enrollments. Programs that have large enrollments, relative to the available student pool, are most likely to be found among those that are inclusive, have many full-time tenure-track faculty members, or are located in small baccalaureate institutions with language requirements. Programs with the largest number of majors per thousand students displayed some similar characteristics. They are disproportionately located in baccalaureate institutions without language requirements and, to a lesser degree, in small comprehensive and doctorate-granting institutions with large numbers of full-time tenure-track faculty members.

It appears that, in some respects, different measures of program strength yield quite different sets of strong foreign language programs. Four-year programs in large doctorate-granting institutions can be considered strong because they are most likely to have large numbers of majors and large enrollments. Programs in small baccalaureate institutions, in contrast, excel in other measures of strength: enrollments per hundred students and number of majors per thousand students. All measures, including the percentage of all enrollments in advanced courses, are related to only one characteristic: the number of full-time tenure-track faculty members. When this number is large, four-year programs score high on all measures of program strength identified with the aid of the 1987–89 survey of foreign language programs. Perhaps tenure-track faculty members are essential to the creation and maintenance of a strong program because their long-term commitment to an institution provides the curricular structure and coherence that are vital underpinnings for a rich and robust program.

Appendix

Procedures Used in Choosing the Sample of Foreign Language Programs in Postsecondary Institutions

This appendix describes how the universe of foreign language programs was identified and the stratified random sample selected.

Identifying the Universe

The universe of all foreign language programs in United States colleges and universities was identified by compiling a database including all such programs. The core of the database was available in the MLA's file of departmental administrators, which contains information on the names of current chairs of language programs, the programs' addresses, and the languages in which they offer instruction. ⁵⁰ These data were supplemented with the following information collected by the Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics (NCES): institutional type, source of funding, and number of full- and part-time students enrolled in fall 1986. ⁵¹ The information on institutional type provided by the NCES served as the basis for classifying institutions in terms of major categories developed by the Carnegie Foundation: doctorate-granting universities, comprehensive institutions, baccalaureate institutions, and two-year colleges. ⁵² Data on highest degree granted by individual language programs were also included in the database. ⁵³

Choosing the Foreign Language Sample

Choosing a sample of collegiate foreign language programs to survey on a regular basis presented a complex sampling problem because the number of language units housed at an institution varies. The first step in establishing a sampling frame, therefore, involved distinguishing between institutions with one foreign language unit and those with several. Four major administrative arrangements were eventually identified:

Divisions provide instruction in both English and foreign languages. Language programs were included in this category if their titles explicitly indicated that they offered not only language courses but also nonlanguage courses such as philosophy, history, fine arts, or social sciences.

Joint programs offer instruction in both English and foreign languages. This arrangement differs from the first in that nonlanguage courses are not included in the administrative unit.

Multilingual programs are much like joint programs, except that they do not offer English courses; these are administered by an independent administrative unit. ⁵⁴ Multilingual programs administer courses in all foreign languages offered by an institution.

Multiple language units are present when institutions have one unit for English and separate units for each foreign language or pair of foreign languages offered—or, in a good many cases, for each language group. A linguistics or comparative literature program may also be present.

Of the four organizational arrangements, only the last assigns responsibility for foreign language instruction to more than one administrative unit. It is found at only 10% of the institutions in the database (see table A1); the vast majority of colleges and universities, therefore, confine foreign language instruction to one administrative unit. Nonetheless, variation in the number of such units required a two-step sampling procedure: institutions with foreign language programs were chosen at random from each of the four strata identified above; and then all foreign language programs at the institutions chosen in step 1 were included in the survey sample.

In addition to administrative arrangements for foreign language instruction, two factors were considered in establishing a sampling frame: institutional size and highest degree granted. Most United States colleges and universities are small and educate relatively few students. ⁵⁵ To ensure that the limited number of institutions educating the largest number of students were adequately represented in the sample of language programs, we oversampled large institutions. Small institutions, because of their large numbers, were undersampled. Like large institutions, programs granting PhDs in foreign languages are relatively few in number. They too were oversampled, therefore, to ensure that the final sample contained a sufficient number for meaningful multivariate analysis. AA-granting programs, in contrast, were undersampled because of their large numbers and the relative uniformity of their language programs.

In establishing the actual sampling frame, we ignored degree status, because a disproportionate number of large institutions are doctorate-granting. Oversampling such institutions, therefore, had the effect of oversampling PhD-granting foreign language programs. Large institutions are also disproportionately publicly funded, and, therefore, unless corrective measures are taken, oversampling large institutions leads to the undersampling of private institutions. Institutions included in the final sample of 474 (23% of all institutions with foreign language programs) were chosen at random from 20 strata or subgroups that differed by the number of full- and part-time students enrolled in fall 1986 and by the administrative arrangements for foreign language programs. Where possible, private institutions were oversampled within each of the size-administrative type groups, to avoid underrepresentation of such institutions in the sample as a whole. ⁵⁶

Table A1 shows major dimensions of the final sample of institutions. In comparison to the universe, institutions with 5,000 or more students are overrepresented, while those with 2,000 or fewer are underrepresented. As expected, doctorate-granting institutions are overrepresented, as are comprehensive institutions. Baccalaureate institutions are noticeably underrepresented because most have small student bodies and, therefore, were undersampled. Of the four administrative types, institutions with multiple language units are overrepresented because they are concentrated in the institutions with large student bodies that were oversampled. Finally, institutions in the Northeast are overrepresented, while church-related institutions, which tend to be small, are underrepresented. Taken together, private institutions are not significantly underrepresented, however, thanks to the compensatory measures adopted during sample selection. Thus the composition of the final sample is much as it was designed to be; in almost all cases, the over- or underrepresentation of selected sample segments stems from the oversampling of large institutions and the undersampling of small ones. Of the resulting imperfections in the sample, only the relative scarcity of baccalaureate institutions is of consequence.

All administrative units responsible for language instruction at the institutions included in the sample became part of the final sample of foreign language programs ( N =735). ⁵⁷ Although one might have reduced the number of units included from institutions with multiple language units by choosing a subset at random, this step was not taken because such partial response might distort the picture of foreign language instruction at large institutions. In addition, inclusion of all programs at any given institution maximized coverage of the less commonly taught languages.

Inclusion of all foreign language units at an institution enhanced the overrepresentation of departments in large and doctorate-granting institutions in the sample of programs because such institutions are most likely to have multiple language units. Nonetheless, as table A2 indicates, the major dimensions of the sample of programs are like those of the sample of institutions. Compared with the universe, foreign language programs in institutions with 5,000 or more students are overrepresented, while those in institutions with 2,000 or fewer students are underrepresented. In addition, programs in doctorate-granting institutions are overrepresented, as are those granting doctorate or master's degrees. Programs in baccalaureate institutions are underrepresented because such institutions are quite small, while programs in two-year colleges are underrepresented because such institutions generally have only one language unit. ⁵⁸ Although foreign language programs in church-related institutions are underrepresented, private institutions are not; if one ignores the distinction between private independent and private church-related institutions, the foreign language programs in private institutions included in the sample account for 25% of all such programs.

Because of the preponderance of certain types of foreign language programs in large institutions, they are overrepresented in the sample. This applies to programs offering instruction in 6 or more languages, as well as to the types of programs found in institutions with multiple language units: those limiting their course offerings to a group of related languages (e.g., Slavic, Romance) and those limiting their offerings to 1 or 2 individual languages. ⁵⁹ In sum, most of the atypical features of the sample of foreign language programs result from the purposeful oversampling of those institutions educating the largest number of students.

The Baseline Survey

Development of the questionnaire for the inaugural survey of foreign language programs was undertaken at the same time that the universe of programs was being identified and the sample chosen. In early November 1988, a version of the questionnaire that had been revised several times in response to input from several MLA committees was sent to a number of department chairs from both two- and four-year institutions for pretesting ( N =34). The responses indicated that most of the questions were clearly and appropriately worded and that little additional revision was required. The pretest also suggested, however, that, despite the questionnaire's general clarity, it was too long. Consequently, we decided to divide the baseline survey into two parts, with the first going to respondents in spring 1989 and the second in fall 1989. Further, we decided to offer respondents one of several MLA publications as an incentive to complete the second part of the survey. Once the completed surveys had been coded, a multivariate regression analysis, designed in part to identify subgroup differences in curriculum and program characteristics, was undertaken. The main body of this article summarized many of the findings emerging from that analysis. ⁶⁰

Bettina J. Huber is Director of Research for the Modern Language Association.

Notes

¹ The complete survey report is available on request.

² Key features of the database, and thus of all foreign language programs in the United States, are described in Huber (“Foreign Language Programs”).

³ The figures in this last column underestimate the response rates somewhat because the few programs refusing to participate in the surveys have not been eliminated from the sample subgroups. The percentages in the main body of table 1 and elsewhere in this article may not add up to 100% because of rounding. In addition, the number of respondents in tables and tabulations varies because programs for which information was missing on specific items were eliminated from consideration.

⁴ When respondents could not provide these data, fall 1986 figures compiled by the National Center for Education Statistics were used.

⁵ In addition, publicly funded four-year institutions have more students, on average, than the privately funded do. Among two-year colleges, so few are privately funded that no meaningful comparison by size is possible.

⁶ Since there is only one program at a public baccalaureate institution in the sample, this category is ignored in the comparison.

⁷ The figures in table 2 are drawn from the larger database rather than from the survey sample.

⁸ The survey question about the degrees granted by language programs did not clearly ask respondents to note the graduate degrees they offered in specific languages. Consequently, information on graduate degrees from the MLA's database of foreign language programs was combined with the survey data to arrive at the degree measure used here.

⁹ Insofar as single-dual language departments are imprecisely named or offer several versions of a language (e.g., Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese; Old French and French), they may offer more than two languages. For example, a German department may offer courses in German, Old High German, Middle High German, Dutch, and Swedish.

¹⁰ Two-year programs offering 6 or more languages also account for 5 of 7 programs offering instruction in Latin and 3 of 4 programs offering instruction in Greek