29, no. 1 (Fall 1997): 28-29
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Foreign Language Departments as Leaders
Karin C. Ryding
FOREIGN language departments are in a strong position to serve as leaders of curricular change at our institutions. The changes under way, which increasingly involve interdisciplinary work and efforts to provide students with a broad global awareness, allow us to apply several of our academic and professional abilities at the institutional level. First, we offer an important experience and awareness of pedagogical issues that involve both classroom methodology and second language acquisition research. Our knowledge of the former underpins our classroom skills and, ultimately, student performance; our knowledge of the latter informs our preparation of materials and the structure of our curricula. We can lead in the evaluation of teaching on campus in the faculty discussion of preparation and curricular structure. Unlike many of our colleagues, we already have a tradition and a metalanguage for methodology, which is becoming increasingly important as administrations assess accountability.
We can also contribute to efforts toward interdisciplinarity. My institution, Georgetown University, is fortunate that its president, Leo J. O'Donovan, SJ, has declared interdisciplinary and cross-campus curricular initiatives a major priority. For each of the past two academic years he has dedicated $100,000 to interdisciplinary faculty initiatives, producing a wealth of ideas and stimulating interdisciplinary research and teaching across the undergraduate and graduate curriculum.
Foreign language departments can lead in the development of interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary curricula because of their vast experience with multidisciplinary work. For years foreign language departments have fostered the integration of research and teaching resources in fields such as linguistics, anthropology, literature, art, film, religion, and history; these disciplines are united within language departments through their presentation in the target language and their focus on the target culture.
The systematic development of interdisciplinary curricula is one of the biggest challenges facing academic programs; university financial offices and administrators are usually inflexible or inexperienced at creating or managing strong interdisciplinary programs and evaluating interdisciplinary teaching and research. Language departments have long been stewards of wide-ranging interdisciplinary work, and thus they can offer experience and leadership. For example, language departments have had a core role in language and area study programs, which have been around for about forty years and still thrive, especially in the less commonly taught languages and non-Western world cultures. These programs are models of how to structure effective undergraduate and graduate interdisciplinary curricula; they often include integrative introductory and capstone coursework designed to help students develop the capacity to synthesize and apply knowledge to real-world situations.
Less commonly taught languages (LCTLs) offer rich but often neglected academic resources and in many ways can help demystify foreign cultures and diversify the curriculum. Many LCTL faculty members have interdisciplinary backgrounds and wide-ranging research interests and have spent years abroad. They are rarely narrow-minded specialists; part of their mission is to promote interest in their fields and inform students, faculty members, and the larger community through interaction with colleagues in other disciplines.
Below are a few examples of the ways LCTLs can provide leadership. Most of them involve my field, Arabic language and culture, but one could easily apply them, mutatis mutandis, to other LCTLs.
In business school programs that offer an international MBA or international executive training, LCTL professors can teach about essential aspects of non-Western culture and social interaction that are increasingly important in global business; they can teach the classes in English.
Because Arabic teachers (for example) often speak French, Spanish, German, or another language in addition to English and Arabic, they can participate in seminars and lectures in other language departments, giving an alternative point of view on literature, film, cultural history, religion, or linguistics. An LCTL perspective can provide richness of texture across the curriculum by illuminating subjects such as Francophone literature in North Africa; the centuries of Spanish-Arabic cultural, literary, and linguistic interaction; and the Arab-American tradition of expatriate authors such as Jubran Khalil Jubran.
Interdisciplinary fields of study such as medieval studies and history of science can also benefit from the non-Western perspective. For example, in the early Middle Ages Arabic language and culture was dominant around the Mediterranean, and Arabic was the leading language of science. Yet this aspect of intellectual history has often been inadequately represented in American higher education. The interactions between Arab and European cultures in this era form fertile ground for the study of hegemony and pluralism, premodern locations of culture, and the fluidity of prenational boundaries. Some faculty members from language departments that include LCTLs specialize in the literature and culture of particular historical periods and can use their expertise in teaching teams or guest lectures.
Faculty members from LCTL departments may serve as resources for comparative religion or theology programs by speaking from a personal perspective on faiths such as Islam, Hinduism, traditional African religions, and Buddhism, thus helping broaden the cultural perspective of the curriculum. Likewise, in women's studies and other academic areas that focus on discourses of otherness, alterity, and marginalization, LCTL faculty members can provide academic and experiential perspectives.
These suggestions involve only a few areas that overlap with the humanities; areas such as international relations, public policy, and national security studies can also benefit from the perspective of non-Western or less familiar languages and cultures.
Course designers developing interdisciplinary course-work must be alert to the methodological and critical complexities of the task, and they must establish clear and consistent principles and procedures for incorporating alternative perspectives. As Fedwa Malti-Douglas notes, “In an ideal academic environment, proficiency should embody control over the critical languages that permit one to speak to one's colleagues in the humanities and social sciences.”
These intersections of interest among languages and other fields suggest the potential for joint appointments, team-teaching collaborations, and curriculum-development efforts that make creative, cost-effective use of increasingly limited resources. They also underscore important but sometimes neglected ways in which intercultural study can flourish on our campuses and better prepare us for the complexities of life in an interdependent world.
Malti-Douglas comments, “Communication with other fields now demands grappling with the new methodologies of the humanities and social sciences. For scholars who have invested their formative years in arduous language study, to enter into debate with experienced practitioners of the new methodologies demands courage. But leaving home always demands courage.” Foreign language faculty members' leaving home and leading in the restructuring of the university curriculum can benefit higher education as a whole and serve to weave language, culture, and literature into new configurations in American academic culture.
The author is Dean of Interdisciplinary Programs and Sultan Qaboos bin Said Professor of Arabic Language and Culture at Georgetown University. This article is based on her presentation at the 1996 MLA convention in Washington, DC.
Work Cited
Malti-Douglas, Fedwa. Letter. PMLA 111 (1996): 311.
© 1997 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All Rights Reserved.
ADFL Bulletin 29, no. 1 (Fall 1997): 28-29 |
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