By Armelle Hofer
As I see it for the Gazette-Times | Posted: Monday, May 26, 2008 12:00 am
As you might have learned if you caught any of our Tower of Babble installation in the Memorial Union Lounge on May 13, this year was designated by UNESCO as the International Year of Languages.
Yet, at a time when the needs for international cooperation and for multilingualism are stronger than ever, Oregon State University's Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures is being pressured to dramatically reduce its class offerings for next fall.
For lack of adequate funding, we may have to close sections in all languages, and it appears that first-year Italian will be eliminated, despite its enormous popularity.
Students will find it increasingly difficult to register for language classes, a situation which deeply upsets the whole faculty and staff of this department.
Furthermore, since most language classes are offered in sequence and only once a year, underfunding will make it even harder for students who need to complete foreign language requirements to graduate on time. It also means larger class sizes and less personal attention, factors that are especially detrimental to learning languages.
This situation is all the more absurd since the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures makes money for the university. Under a budgeting model where tuition dollars follow the students, we see that Foreign Languages' finances are completely in order: We generate more money than we need to operate at current capacity. Instead of which, through the use of an unfair budget model, we find ourselves with a deficit of $250,000 and threatened with job losses.
The Oregon Legislature has repeatedly emphasized the importance of foreign languages and Oregon universities' role in the state's internationalization. Yet it remains an unfunded mandate, in K-12 education and at the university level.
We simply ask for the funds to do our job, to complete our public service mission of teaching languages to students.
So are foreign languages important at OSU, or is it just a pretense? Is this the International Year of Languages, or is it the year we get cut?
Armelle Hofer is a French instructor at Oregon State University. This column also was signed by 17 other faculty members from OSU's Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures.