The absence of Spanish 101 from the list of courses available was among the most conspicuous signs of reductions in the offerings in several language departments for the 2004-05 academic year.
The cuts are the result of a variety of factors, including a shortage in department faculty, the distribution of the Academic Affairs budget and the effect of the slow economy on the University’s endowment.
This budget distribution also eliminates second semester American Sign Language.
The Spanish Department cut five courses, including two sections of 101, a fall semester section of 102, and two spring semester sections of 102. One section each of the fall semester French 101 and the spring semester 102 was also cut, in addition to two fall sections of111, and one of 112. The Italian Department cut two upper level courses, which were being offered in English.
“The first thing we want to stress is that nobody wants to cancel classes— not the Administration, not the faculty, and not the trustees,” said Jeff Rider, chair of the Romance Languages and Literatures Department. “But the simple answer is that there’s just not enough money.”
He added that each department came up with a solution to fit the enrollment patterns and the ability level of most students upon coming to Wesleyan. This meant making cuts in areas where the lowest number of students would be the least affected.
“American students have lots of opportunities to start Spanish in high school,” Rider said, explaining the lower-level cuts in that department. “But very few can take Italian before coming to college.”
Though many of the changes in French and Spanish will primarily affect incoming students with a lower language level, current upper-level students will bear the brunt of the cuts in Italian courses.
“The Italian Department offers so many great intro courses and Wesleyan has such a great program in Bologna,” said Sarah Hexter ’05, a College of Letters major and a student of Italian. “But it’s disappointing that they aren’t able to provide as many follow-up courses for people who have already had these experiences.”
Rider said that the Romance Languages and Literatures curriculum, which was created eight years ago based on previous enrollments, continues to reflect current demands, but even if all of the department’s faculty were on campus and teaching full-time, it would be impossible to fulfill the benchmarks of the curriculum.
“We have an absolute deficit in staffing in all three languages,” Rider said.
He added that tenure track faculty members are usually expected to teach two courses a semester and adjunct professors teach three courses one semester and two the other, but after factors like faculty leave, sabbaticals, and fellowships are taken into account, the situation becomes even more constrictive.
Filling this teaching gap with temporary faculty members requires additional money from the Academic Affairs budget, which according to Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost Judith Brown, is constantly struggling to adequately fund every department.
“We don’t have all the funds we want to have in order to offer all the courses we would like to offer and that students would like to take,” she said. “Although we spend a greater proportion of our budget on the educational mission of the university, and have proportionally the smallest administrative staff and non-educational expenses per students of all our peers, we still have to make a real stretch to meet our needs.”
Brown added that because the temporary faculty members are paid with extra money resulting from faculty members going on un-paid leave, there is a chance that administrators might be able to restore some of these between now and September if they learn that more professors will be on leave next semester.
The Academic Affairs budget is composed of a combination of annual payouts from the endowment, tuition revenues, and gifts either to the endowment or directly to the operating budget. But, Brown said, despite the fact that tuition rates have risen, the amount of money coming to her department from the endowment has been drastically reduced by the effect of the state of the economy on the University’s endowment spending policy.
According to Vice President for Finance and Administration Marcia Bromberg, the University increases spending by 6 percent each year within a spending collar of 4.5 -5.5 percent of the previous 12-quarter or 3-year average endowment value.
This means that more money can be spent if the endowment value increases abruptly, as it did in the late 1990s, and that amount must be lowered if the endowment loses value, as it has over the past several years.
During the 2004-05 academic year, Bromberg said, endowment spending will be less than the current year because of this collar. She added that she does not expect spending to reach the current academic year levels until later this decade, although the timing depends on how quickly the endowment increases in value through market returns and new gifts.
Though the reduction in the Academic Affairs budget affects all University departments, Rider said it shows itself more clearly in departments like Romance Languages and Literatures, which are already understaffed.
Other University departments may also feel the effects of the cuts in Romance Languages.
“It is my hope that any cuts that must be made will be temporary, since language study is an essential pre-requisite for study abroad, and since knowledge of the host culture greatly facilitates the academic and cross-cultural learning that takes place during a semester or year abroad,” wrote Director of International Studies Carolyn Sorkin in an e-mail.
Sorkin added that in the meantime, the Office of International Studies and the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures will be working closely with students who may be unable to fulfill the normal requirements for study abroad on campus due to the cuts.
She said she does not expect this to be the case for most students because of the way the departments have managed to strategically design the cuts to avoid the most negative effects on the largest possible portion of students.
According to Rider, the inability to meet demand for courses is not a new problem for his department or for the University. He said that the administration is always torn between the competing factors of maintaining Wesleyan’s curriculum as consumer driven—meaning that the courses offered reflect what students are interested in taking— and its obligation to ensure that the curriculum includes current ideas about human knowledge.
It is the interaction between these two factors, Rider said, that determines the curriculum in a given year.
“Inevitably, you can’t meet demand across the board,” he said. “Consumer demand is often hard to calculate, and some areas will always be given the short end of the stick.”
Leave a Reply