Several languages at UO have received management and budget cuts, leading to fast-paced curriculum changes that leave some enrolled students behind in credits and class enrollment.
UO offers 25 different languages for students to enroll in, ranging from French to Russian to Swahili. Amid such a wide variety, many students are drawn to the Department of Romance Languages –– containing French, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese. According to the Department of Romantic languages, more than 1,100 students are enrolled in a Romantic language. During freshman orientation and “IntroDUCKtion,” incoming students are encouraged to transfer their high school language credits rather than explore the many languages that were not provided in their high school.
Although Romance languages are a convenient way to transfer credits, several other languages and departments have been forced to change their curriculum and course loads.
In the spring term of the 2021-2022 year, Deiahdeen Alhjaj, an incoming senior operation and business analytics student said students that took Arabic courses since their freshman year received an abrupt curriculum change after the department changed its course plan. Students that had planned to carry on through Arabic 202 were moved to take an uncredited class that would fulfill the Arts and Letters requirement for the new curriculum. The new curriculum involves an influence of Egyptian dialect to gain the interest of more students. The students were not aware of this transition. Half of the students dropped from the Arabic program leaving credits behind.
“I wish we were told about the changes ahead of time because in the transition phase, I basically was not able to get my arts and letters credits for the class,” Alhjaj said. “I feel like I just wasted the whole first year.”
In order to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree, a student needs to complete a two-year language requirement. Arabic, like many other languages, requires three years to become proficient or fluent in. With the Arabic department only consisting of two professors, David Hollenburg and Hanan Elsherif, the curriculum needed to be adjusted to accommodate the lack of professors. The course coding changed to create repeatable courses for students who wanted to continue Arabic. This set up classes for the 2022-23 academic year so that the department could remain on campus.
In spite of heavy demand, French classes always faced department troubles. Multiple retired professors have not been replaced, while other tenured professors and career instructors are on research sabbaticals. This summer, many French classes were canceled, forcing some students to study at other institutions to earn enough credits to graduate, said Connie Dickey, a senior instructor and first-year supervisor of French.
“They have quite a detailed framework that they have come up with, but how that is implemented will be greatly influenced by the new director and dean,” Dickey said.
This upcoming year, a new director of languages and dean of the College of Arts and Sciences will be taking on languages at UO. Both will have influences over which languages and departments are included in a new College of Global Arts. Several languages have not been included so far. UO language departments continue to operate with funding cuts and curriculum changes, while enrolling and maintaining success within the students.
