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THIS special issue of the ADFL Bulletin, Chairing the Foreign Language and Literature Department, is essentially a product of the work of the Executive Committee of the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages, whose membership comprises foreign language department chairs from all over the country chosen in national elections. For many years the training of chairs has been an important concern of the committee, and we have often discussed the need for a resource book or handbook for foreign language department chairs. In our discussions, we learned that many of the committee members had themselves received no such training. Our experience at the ADFL Summer Seminars taught us that many, if not most, of our colleagues across the country had also received no training and that they looked to the ADFL, especially to the summer seminars, for help. It was the 1991 Executive Committee that launched the workshops for new chairs at the summer seminars. These workshops have been well received by both new chairs and not so new chairs. Those of us called on to direct the workshops were struck by the importance of the undertaking. Once again, the discussions, in particular, were revealing. They confirmed many of our perceptions concerning the state of the profession.
The times are clearly fraught with both danger and opportunity for foreign language and literature departments: danger because of the worrisome economic climate, opportunity because this very climate has stimulated interest in our field. The public seems to have finally acknowledged the need to compete in the global market and the attendant need to equip Americans to do so. Efforts are being made to internationalize the curriculum on almost every campus in the country. Diversity is now highly valued, and young people are seeking to recover the vanishing cultural legacies of their forebears. As a result of all these factors, enrollments are rising. The 1987–89 MLA survey found that enrollments in language courses have increased in two out of three programs, while enrollments in literature courses have remained stable or increased in nine out of ten programs (Huber ch. 9, p. 5).
We are encouraged by this good news yet sobered by other findings. We know that enrollments have not risen in some languages and that they are falling in some. The MLA's 1987–88 survey of graduation requirements found that only 42% of institutions have language requirements, and in the 1987–89 MLA survey of foreign language programs in US colleges and universities Bettina Huber found that only 33% of institutions without requirements in 1980 had them in 1988 (Huber ch. 2, p. 2). (Although we all know that the foreign language requirement can be a mixed blessing, it still remains the most obvious sign that institutions recognize the importance of foreign language studies.) Huber also reported that only 18.9% of respondents thought that the administrators responsible for the humanities on their campuses considered foreign language study indispensable for all undergraduates. Less than half believed that their administrators viewed foreign language study as essential to a well-rounded education (ch. 1, p. 14).
It is indeed the best of times and the worst of times. Certainly it is a moment when effective leaders might take advantage of the general interest and the rising enrollments in our field to develop new initiatives, create new programs, or enhance existing ones. It is also a moment when a savvy chair might be able to stave off incursions. We should only have to make sacrifices required of others as well.
More than ever, chairs must also be persuasive advocates for their departments and our discipline. We all know that there are divergent interests in the academy and that units are, in a very real sense, in competition with one another. Given the fact that so few administrators believe foreign language study to be essential to a well-rounded education, the foreign language chair must be willing to campaign vigorously to change administrative attitudes, which are often born of ignorance. Many chairs will be surprised to discover that their deans and their colleagues in other disciplines do not really know what we do. We are still living with the consequences of what happened in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when there was little foresight, and even less advocacy, and foreign language requirements were abolished on campuses across the country. As a result, a whole generation of Americans has been educated with no exposure to foreign languages. Many of our younger colleagues in other disciplines have never studied a foreign language. Others have been traumatized by the difficulty of acquiring the foreign language proficiency required for their PhDs. Many of our senior colleagues were among those who supported dropping the requirements in the 1960s and 1970s. Is it any wonder that we lack support and are still struggling for our proper place in the curriculum?
The challenges and opportunities for new chairs—and experienced ones, too—are very great, and much is in the balance. We need able and astute leaders who are also persuasive advocates. Yet how are these leaders to be formed?
The intellectual training we have received, coupled with the teaching, research, and service we do as we rise through the ranks, prepares us, or should prepare us, for intellectual leadership and also for leadership in pedagogical and curricular matters. We were all successful teachers and scholars before we became chairs. But what prepares us to deal with administrators who don't even know what we do, with disgruntled faculty members, with complicated workload issues, or with vital program planning and development?
My decision to undertake this project was born primarily of two experiences. The first occurred when the time came to hand over the reins of my department to someone else. My six years as chair were characterized by struggle and many gains, and I did not want my successor to lose any of the ground I had fought so hard to win. I became aware that training was essential. I did my best to pass on what I could, but I realized that other resources and other perspectives would have been immensely useful to my successor. The second experience took place the summer after I left the job, when I cochaired with Herman Bostick a workshop for new chairs at the ADFL Seminar in Atlanta. Here again I was struck by the special challenges that face chairs in our field. No one questions the place of English or history in the curriculum, for example, yet our place is still not ensured. Often foreign language chairs must also deal with a degree of diversity others can hardly even imagine. In my department, for instance, we teach French, German, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Russian, Japanese, and Arabic. Clearly, chairs in our field need help. The workshops are very useful, but what of those chairs who can't come to them? These were the considerations and experiences that induced me to assume responsibility for this undertaking.
Much of the initial conceptualization for a chair's handbook was done by Janice Zinser. It was Renée Waldinger, though, who suggested the format that was finally adopted—a special expanded issue of the ADFL Bulletin. This approach afforded some unique advantages. We would be assured that the entire ADFL membership, comprising more than 1,200 departments, would receive the volume. It could also be produced fairly rapidly. Time was, of course, at a premium for all of us, and we sought the broadest possible distribution. Our format, however, required that we limit the number of contributions. We were forced to make judicious choices regarding the scope of the issue. We finally determined to exclude those curricular and pedagogical issues with which all faculty members are frequently involved, and which are frequently dealt with in professional journals and in other forums. Most chairs should have the training and experience to provide leadership in these areas. If they don't, help is readily available elsewhere. The ADFL Bulletin is always a valuable resource because it contains articles on these issues written from the chair's perspective. The Bulletin's Spring issue contains an annual index and regular cumulative indexes appear approximately every five years. Another MLA publication, which is still useful although it was published ten years ago, is Claire Gaudiani's book Strategies for Development of Foreign Language and Literature Programs.
Our collection instead deals with administrative matters. It addresses a variety of pressing issues that face chairs now with precisely the diversity of voice that successfully draws chairs from across the country to return year after year to the ADFL Seminars East and West. We solicited contributions from experienced leaders in our field, many of them current or former members of the ADFL Executive Committee, including four past presidents. Two entries were written in response to a call for papers in the MLA Newsletter. Our contributors were given free rein and no attempt was made to homogenize the outcome. The contributors all have distinctive voices and work in a variety of settings throughout the country. Some of our authors suggest strategies diametrically opposed to those put forth by others, reflecting different personal styles and different contexts. What works well for one person in one setting might or might not work for another in a different setting or even in the same one. Some of the essays are anecdotal; others are well researched and include extensive bibliographies. Several of our contributors have taken the occasion to grapple with these important issues from a national perspective. All but three of the articles were written from the vantage point of experienced and successful current or former foreign language chairs. I tolerated some overlap in the essays because I know that some advice will not be heeded unless it comes from someone in an institutional setting similar to the reader's.
No one should be surprised that a common thread running through many of the pieces is the importance of language programs. Language learning is what we all share—those of us in two-year and PhD-granting institutions alike—and although few of us are language specialists per se, we all entered the field because we loved language and we all know that without the foundation of strong language programs our whole edifice topples. Our contributors urge all of us, but particularly those of us in PhD-granting institutions, not to forget the importance of our language programs. I could not agree with them more.
This issue begins with essays on department management, dealing with the dean, assessment and evaluation, faculty development, personnel problems, workload, compensation and rewards, program planning and development, and hiring—issues crucial to all of us. These articles are followed by the revised “Checklist for Self-Study for Departments of Foreign Languages and Literatures,” which should be immensely helpful to all department chairs.
Minority participation, a topic with which we all should be grappling, is dealt with next. The three pieces that follow treat significant matters about which some chairs may know little and all chairs should definitely know more—teacher education, articulation, and the language lab. These concerns are timely and important now, and they promise to grow in importance.
The next three articles are meant primarily for new chairs, although all will surely profit from the wisdom they contain. Here, experienced and successful chairs in three different settings—a state university, a liberal arts college, and a two-year college—offer survival tips and advice that should serve anyone well in any setting.
The Michigan State model of chair training is provided chiefly for those in institutions where no training is available. We hope that knowing what others are doing to equip their chairs for service will empower many to become advocates for similar programs in their own institutions. Any effort, however modest, will be an improvement over the total neglect that prevails in many quarters, and it will profit everyone.
Richard Brod then gives us a much-needed historical perspective on the profession and also some wise counsel. In the last piece Bettina Huber publishes for the first time the results of the 1989–90 survey of foreign language department programs concerning the responsibilities and compensation of department chairs. This report is followed by pertinent policy statements of the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages and a cumulative index of the ADFL Bulletin, volumes 22–25.
I trust that this volume provides foreign language and literature department chairs the tools they need to become effective leaders, savvy administrators, and persuasive advocates. It is certainly time to equip and train chairs to do their job well, for it is they who must create environments in which students learn and faculty members teach, do research, and serve to their full potential. Those who have suffered under poor leadership know that these activities do not happen as they should in the hostile environment spawned by an ineffectual chair.
I am grateful to the members of the ADFL Executive Committee for their help, support, and participation and to all the contributors for their willingness to share their wisdom and insight. The many reviewers provided valuable comments; the copyeditors did wonders with our sometimes turgid administrative prose. Most of all I am grateful to David Goldberg for his invaluable help, to John Cross, whose much needed input was forthcoming despite the demands of his transition back into the academy, and to Elizabeth Welles for her effective oversight of the final stages of publication.
Gaudiani, Claire, et al. Strategies for Development of Foreign Language and Literature Programs. New York: MLA, 1984.
Huber, Bettina J. Characteristics of Foreign Language Programs in US Colleges and Universities: A Report on the 1987–1989 MLA Survey. New York: MLA, 1992.
© 1994 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All Rights Reserved.
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