THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, April 24, 1995 TAG: 9504240043
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 156 lines
Make it too easy for students, and they won't learn what they need.
Make it too hard, and maybe they'll try some other college.
And what do you teach them: The subjects that will broaden their minds or the ones that will best prepare them for careers?
Do you teach everything to every student, or are some classes unnecessary for some majors? Do you cut out some courses to save money?
These are the types of questions that colleges must grapple with as they modify their course offerings and requirements in the face of shrinking budgets, increased competition for students and mushrooming academic disciplines.
Old Dominion University is engaging in a debate over foreign language requirements that exemplifies the sometimes clashing values shaping a college curriculum. The factors go beyond education, touching on matters philosophical and financial.
A faculty committee reviewing the university's core requirements - also known as general education classes - has suggested easing the foreign language demands for many students.
Now, students in the College of Arts and Letters, who major in liberal arts fields such as English and sociology, must take two years of a language at ODU. Nearly all other students, such as those in engineering and nursing, don't have to study language at ODU; they need only have taken three years in high school.
The committee has made a preliminary recommendation to drop the high school requirement for most students outside arts and letters to two years.
The rationale is based less on what's best for the student to amass knowledge and more on what's best for the university to attract students.
Most other doctoral institutions in Virginia seek only two years of high school language for students in fields such as business and engineering.
``How competitive are we?'' asked John M. Ritz, chairman of the faculty committee. ``If we're saying for admission you need three years of foreign language, then someone else admits them with two years of foreign language, where might they go?'' The requirement, he said, might deter adult students in particular.
Ritz said the committee is still debating the issue. Jo Ann Gora, the university's provost, will make the final decision next school year. She's still undecided, but understands the committee's feelings: ``Colleges are concerned about the quality of students they're able to recruit. That's why we're worried about tuition; we're all competing for students.''
Eldridge Chambers, a junior engineering technology major from Roanoke, sees both sides. A looser requirement might attract more students, because some are too busy to take three years of language in high school, he said. But he'd rather keep the three-year rule. ``Since the job market is so tight,'' said Chambers, who took three years of high school Spanish, ``it might help us find jobs.''
Said Gora: ``There are very difficult choices you have to make. You need to leave enough hours for the major, you need to leave room for students to take electives and you also need to provide them with a strong background.
``Somehow, you have to strike a balance that makes sense for your students. I just don't think these questions have easy answers.''
The change in college language requirements has reflected larger shifts in society over the decades, said Bethany S. Oberst, a former French professor who is vice president of academic affairs at James Madison University.
A half-century ago, colleges traditionally required all students to take a foreign language. But with the emergence of an ``America first'' attitude in the '50s and a ``do-your-own-thing'' philosophy in the '60s, many schools lightened their policies.
``I don't think Americans really grasp the need for communicating with people who don't speak English,'' said Maria Still, foreign languages coordinator of the Virginia Beach school system. ``Back in their minds is the idea, `Oh, they'll speak English.' I'm not sure we've ever come out of that mind-set.''
Some colleges maintain across-the-board language requirements. The College of William and Mary and Virginia Wesleyan College both require students from all disciplines to take two years of college language, although students can be exempted from all or part of that if they demonstrate proficiency.
But most universities, like Old Dominion, require only liberal arts majors to continue studying language, with the idea it will help students appreciate literary or philosophical works.
In science, it's less crucial, said Richard D. Ringeisen, dean of the university's College of Sciences. ``From a practical point of view, it really is true that English is becoming the international language of science. At international conferences, you can always speak in English and be understood.''
Hampton Roads residents reflect the ambivalence in academe over the importance of languages.
``Kids are being strapped by this, and it's not a necessity,'' said Larry Hollowell, a Norfolk radio announcer. ``They make you take it for two years and then you come out and don't use it at all.''
A friend of his used his Spanish only once after college, in a vain attempt to give directions to a foreign visitor. ``He was able to say, `Una calle grande' to a Spanish sailor. He was telling him it's a large boulevard. That's what he got out of two years of homework.''
But Toni Nave of Virginia Beach said, ``Americans have typically been - `If you don't speak English, I can't be bothered with you.' We can't get away with that now. Increasingly, people aren't doing things in our hometown anymore.''
Nave has been a systems analyst, but she hopes to use her Spanish to better understand international law when she starts law school at the College of William and Mary.
Georgina Hernandez-Carrillo, a NationsBank vice president for recruiting in Miami, says it's helpful in business, too, and not just in her area, with its large Spanish-speaking population. She recalled a consumer banker in Washington who proved successful because he was bilingual and could speak with diplomats.
Although applicants don't have to know another language to get hired, she said, ``it's icing on the cake.''
The debate shouldn't focus solely on whether students need a foreign language to get jobs, Richard Summerville says. Colleges have a higher calling.
``The proper perspective is not so much the utility and the vocation, but the wholeness of the individual,'' said Summerville, provost of Christopher Newport University, which requires students to take one to two years in college. ``We look at our undergraduates as liberally educated people.''
But Jesse Lewis, Summerville's counterpart at Norfolk State University, says he has to be more practical: ``Our university is interested in teaching our students so they will end up with a job or some career. If you ask students, they'll tell you, when they get out they want to get a job, and they're going to college to increase their chances of getting a job.''
Norfolk State recently changed its requirement based on another factor: Pressure to save money.
State officials have been prodding colleges to reduce requirements so almost all students can graduate after taking 120 credit hours; some now need more to graduate. Cutting back, the idea goes, will get students out more quickly and provide more space for the influx expected later this decade. And that will allow the state to serve more students at less cost.
Norfolk State had a schoolwide, one-year requirement but now leaves that up to individual departments. About half, Lewis said, dropped it to maintain other requirements, such as computer literacy.
At ODU, that's also a consideration. ``There have to be tradeoffs; if we're worried about overall hours, what do we take less of?'' asked Ritz, whose committee is considering adding a requirement for an oral communications class.
Some language aficionados say requirements in college are almost beside the point. ``If they haven't gotten it by then, it's not going to work,'' said Suzanne Hayes, a Virginia Beach homemaker. ``Language is something you have to learn at a very young age'' for the best results.
Hayes' two children are learning Spanish at Trantwood Elementary School. ``They love it; it's a joy for them to go,'' she said. At home sometimes, Jennifer, a third-grader, will tell Timothy, a first-grader, ``Sientate, por favor'' - sit down, please.
Trantwood offers French or Spanish to all its 750 students. But it is the only one of the city's 52 elementary schools to offer foreign language during school hours, although some have after-school programs.
Why can't more grade schools offer language to the age group best able to soak it up? ``I believe funding has a great deal to do with it,'' said Still, the foreign languages coordinator, ``as well as the compact schedule they already have.''
Just like the colleges, the public schools must juggle a set of priorities in deciding their curriculums. And the benefits of rolling R's and learning new words and cultures aren't the only considerations.
KEYWORDS: FOREIGN LANGUAGE COLLEGE UNIVERSITY by CNB