28, no. 3 (Spring 1997): 45-46
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Success in the Face of Adversity: The Café-Causette
David A. Fein
LIKE most language departments, our department has witnessed in the last two decades a dramatic redistribution of enrollment in our primary languages. When I first entered the department twenty years ago, French and Spanish were fairly evenly divided in both enrollment and faculty. According to the latest available statistics, enrollment in French now accounts for only twenty-eight percent of the total for both languages. The decline in our French numbers is actually a little less than the national norm, reported in an MLA enrollment study, and because our lower-level French enrollments increased by five percent in 1996, after three years of erosion, we have reason for guarded optimism. It is too early to determine whether the decline has bottomed out, but concern over enrollment has already yielded positive results for the French program.
To stimulate an interest in French while making better use of our limited resources, the faculty, under the energetic leadership of one our newer members, Roberto Campo, decided to overhaul the French conversation group. This group had met once a week, generally drawing a disappointing turnout, despite repeated invitations to students and faculty members. Realizing that the group was ailing if not moribund, the faculty placed the group on a monthly schedule and changed its name to the “Café-Causette” (from the more prosaic “Café”).The group would now incorporate cultural presentations as well as extended opportunities for conversation.
The first meeting drew approximately forty students. The second, highlighting a presentation on burial customs in Madagascar by a faculty member who is a native of the island, drew close to sixty. The most recent meeting, featuring an authentic Alsatian choucroute prepared under the careful supervision of a faculty member from Alsace, attracted over eighty students, who were even willing to pay one dollar each to subsidize the event.
In addition to attracting increasing numbers of students, the event consistently draws participation from the entire French faculty. As a spin-off of the group, several French majors have organized a “ciné-club” (under the guidance of a faculty member), which meets once a month to view and discuss a French film. The same students plan to meet once a month in a local restaurant to converse in French. Meanwhile a faculty member specializing in film studies has organized a French film festival.
What I find especially interesting, encouraging, and even inspiring is that the apparent French renaissance on our campus has been generated not, as one might expect, during a season of plenty but during a dry spell that threatens disaster not only for local programs but also for the study of French at every level throughout the country. The irony of the situation is inescapable. As long as we were assured of steady enrollments, we could afford to leave our extracurricular offerings to fend for themselves. Only when ominous signs of decline began to appear did we start looking for creative ways to shore up these areas. We have consequently converted a marginal activity into one that performs a central programmatic function. While we, like most language faculties, have experienced our share of disagreements over pedagogical issues, I have never seen higher morale or more solidarity among the French faculty. Whether the dramatic turnabout results from a perception of impending crisis, from the resiliency and resourcefulness of this particular faculty, or from both, I cannot say. I can only observe that, unlike other faculties in similar circumstances, we have not fallen into an abyss of self-pity and despair.
A final sign of success: in a gesture of tangible support, our dean has graciously agreed to provide additional discretionary funds in support of the Café-Causette. A hand-written note at the top of my memo requesting financial support simply states, “This is great.” I keep that note on my bulletin board, where, I have a feeling, it will remain for some time.
University of North Carolina, Greensboro
Work Cited
“Results of the MLA's Fall 1995 Survey of Foreign Language Enrollments.” MLA Newsletter 28.4 (1995): 1–2.
© 1997 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All Rights Reserved.
ADFL Bulletin 28, no. 3 (Spring 1997): 45-46 |
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