IHE: Is WVU a Flagship w/o Math and Language?

[Wahoo Redux]

IHE: A Flagship Research University... Without Language Degrees or Math Ph.D.s?

Lower Deck:

Some of West Virginia University's proposed program cuts appear unprecedented, or close to it, for an institution of its kind. Department appeals and student protests seem to be having little effect so far.

On Aug. 11, the university announced "preliminary" recommendations to cut nearly one-tenth of the majors and 169 full-time faculty positions from its flagship Morgantown campus. Those recommendations included the proposed laying off of all 24 members of the Department of World Languages, Literatures and Linguistics, the single largest component of the overall position cuts—and only offering online foreign language instruction from an app or another university.

[Ruralguy]

Its seems odd to cut all languages, but if they don't have an undergrad requirement, and has very few people interested in graduate degrees, I can see why it happened.

My small school has a hefty undergrad language requirement (also includes as an option, Latin and Greek, offered by Classics).  I'd say that when I got here there was healthy interest in 4 languages. Now, its probably only 2, but even the second and third on the list are decreasing all the time. Basically, its turning into a Spanish requirement, because that's all many high schools outside of the top few in a region offer.   I'm pretty sure that when the professors who teach the endangered languages retire, we'll reduce staffing.

Since I doubt my school is particularly special, I can see how many colleges would be under pressure to make cuts in this area.

Its disappointing, and perhaps a bit embarrassing to a flagship, but if there's decreasing interest, what can you do? Allowing profs to teach to pretty much empty rooms isn't fair to the folks who have to teach to full rooms and make the same pay. I'm not talking about small classes, so need to start that debate. I'm talking about all of a profs classes having 1 or 2 students. 

[Hegemony]

Language learning just seems on the decline generally, maybe fostered by the increasing idea that majors that do not lead to immediately obvious careers are useless. I'm sure some careers do benefit from multilingual workers, but it's true that language learning has traditionally been more about "cultural enrichment" and being a global citizen than career applications.

My alma mater used to require two languages up to second-year level or one language up to fourth-year level. Now it requires one year of a language at any level. I can see that it needs to do that to remain competitive for admissions — students who dislike language are unlikely to enroll at a university that has requirements out of sync with the norm.

The university where I teach has very low language requirements, but an initiative is underway to reduce them further.

[apl68]

Alma Mater bucked the trend toward declining language studies some years ago after I left.  When I was there, they offered, besides Hebrew and Greek for seminary-bound students, a bit of French and a bit of Spanish, with one teacher of each.  My mother became the Spanish teacher while I was still there, having "followed" me from high school.  In the 1990s they hired more Spanish teachers, and added several other modern languages.  Mom was never the modern languages department's head, but she was the workhorse of its service requirements and was instrumental in setting up study-abroad programs through the department.

The school was giving modern languages less support by the time Mom retired in the 2010s, but last I looked they still offered multiple languages.  It may be that that SLAC has found a bit of a regional niche in continuing to offer languages for students who still want them.  Not sure how many majors they still support.