29, no. 1 (Fall 1997): 26-27
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Foreign Language Departments as Leaders in Globalization of the Campus
Roberta Johnson
IN AN era of downsizing, the tendency among departments in many disciplines has been to build bunkers around themselves, to shield themselves from the axes of the savage administrators. I think the opposite strategy is in order: departments should go on the offensive and turn the current administrative attempts to streamline the campus to their advantage. Foreign language departments, in particular, have an unparalleled opportunity to work proactively within the college or university community.
As we near the millennium, we are often hearing the term globalization, as well as downsizing. Globalization has increasingly become the watchword for business, government, and, of course, education. Internationalizing the campus is a phrase and concept central to many administrators' visions and discourses. Often, however, the formulation of concrete plans for such internationalization is left vague, and few coherent plans for it are forthcoming. Foreign language departments can seize on these gestures toward making their campuses and curricula more international by advancing ideas that put them at the forefront of campus-wide planning in the future.
Programs in which many foreign language departments are already active but might expand their participation include study abroad, area studies, comparative literature, and international studies. Forging even stronger ties with these programs can help strengthen the position of foreign languages as well as provide teaching outlets for language instructors whose language course enrollments are declining. I want to concentrate briefly here on some initiatives that many institutions may not have considered or may not have developed well: languages across the curriculum and programs or courses for professional schools within the university.
By languages across the curriculum, I mean courses in departments other than the language department (anthropology, art history, economics, geography, history, political science, sociology) taught wholly or partially in a foreign language. More and more students have strong language skills (because of family background, personal experience, study abroad, or outstanding language instruction) and are eager to continue language study but are not interested in the standard language department offerings in literature. Many students in study-abroad programs today are not language majors, and these students want to keep up the language skills they have acquired abroad. Subject courses in languages other than English can fulfill their needs.
Even though such courses might initially seem a potential drain on language department enrollments, language programs that encourage them can reap benefits. Language programs may find that students who do advanced language work in their areas of specialization are enthusiastic about continuing to work at that superior level by taking literature courses (especially when they realize that a deeper knowledge of the foreign culture will help them use the language more effectively in their careers). Languages-across-the-curriculum initiatives show administrators that languages can draw different units of the campus together. Foreign language components of a wider curriculum strengthen international awareness on the campus and give departments and programs other than language departments an opportunity to participate in the internationalization effort.
Foreign language courses outside the language department can take any number of logistical configurations. When it is impractical (for lack of appropriate staffing or of sufficient numbers of proficient students) to teach a course in history or another subject entirely in a foreign language, a department can arrange a special section for students competent to discuss the material at an appropriate level in the foreign language. The section can be conducted by the professor teaching the class, by a member of the foreign language department, or by a graduate teaching assistant. At the University of Kansas, where a languages-across-the-curriculum program (Kansas University Language across the Curriculum) has been in place for several years, a number of professors and instructors have been eager to keep their language skills tuned up by conducting such discussion sections.
Foreign language departments in institutions that have such programs should consider whether the courses should count toward a foreign language major. Most foreign language programs today include culture courses, and departments might consider a course taught in a language in another department as fulfilling part of a culture requirement for the major.
A second area in which foreign language departments can be campus leaders is initiating contacts and formulating programs with units outside the undergraduate college. Many students in professional schools (business, law, journalism, medicine, education) now realize that competence in a foreign language can be crucial to success in today's job market and to career enhancement. The foreign language department can devise courses for almost any professional school that have richer, more useful content than the standard business French, German, or Spanish course. The course preparation should entail working with the proper curricular officer in the professional school to explore how the department can attract student interest (possibly through alternative requirements). Some schools (especially business schools) already have foreign language requirements on which language departments can build. These efforts also require a proactive stance.
For example, Danny J. Anderson, a professor at the University of Kansas, approached the business school about introducing a course to attract business school students to literary study. The course, an alternative to the standard introduction to literature, is tailored for students who have fifth-semester competence in Spanish. The theme of the course is negotiation, a key concept in business and in current literary theory. The course materials are drawn primarily from Latin American literature, thus allowing both for discussion that incorporates practical cultural information and for training in reading and writing about literature. These pedagogical goals are career enhancing for students who may someday work abroad or have to deal with foreign business people whose negotiating styles differ significantly from ours. Similar kinds of courses could be developed in conjunction with other professional schools. Essential to the success of these ventures is a willingness to overcome the bunker mentality and reach out to people in other units of the college or university.
Departments should follow the lead of many political and economic entities that find it necessary to adopt a global perspective. Communication is our stock-in-trade; we should take the lead in breaking down barriers to interdepartmental cooperation and work to bring the various campus units with mutual interests closer. Foreign language departments are the natural avant-garde in the effort to globalize and internationalize the campus.
The author is Professor of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Kansas. This article is based on her presentation at the 1996 MLA convention in Washington, DC.
© 1997 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All Rights Reserved.
ADFL Bulletin 29, no. 1 (Fall 1997): 26-27 |
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