Columbia has been offering fewer foreign language courses as enrollment declines and instructors are harder to find, reflecting a national trend in higher education.
Some languages are no longer offered at all, including Italian, Arabic, German and French.
The Chronicle reviewed all of the foreign language courses offered since just before the pandemic in Fall 2019. That semester Columbia offered three sections of Japanese, two sections of Spanish, one section of Arabic and two sections each of French and Italian, with a total of 154 seats filled across the 10 sections. This was a mix of beginner and advanced classes.
For this upcoming Fall 2024, Columbia will offer one section of Chinese, two sections of Japanese and one section of Spanish. The classes are full with 22 students registered in each, totaling only 88 seats.
In Fall of 2023, there were two sections of Japanese and French, and one each of Italian, Spanish and Chinese.
Columbia’s fewer foreign language course offerings follows national trends in higher education. A study done by the Modern Language Association analyzed language enrollment patterns, for languages other than English, in the United States. They reported an enrollment drop of 16.6% in foreign language classes between 2016 and 2021, which they partly attributed to the overall college and university enrollment decline, hitting 8% in the same time.
Columbia does not require students to take a foreign language course, although they help fulfill requirements in the liberal arts core. That core is changing this fall as part of a massive program review and restructuring aimed at addressing the college’s $38 million deficit.
Rich King, professor and chair of the Humanities, History and Social Sciences Department, said this may further impact the foreign language courses that Columbia offers in the future. Other factors include instructor availability and student interest.
“With transition to a new school and the implementation of a new core in the coming year, I anticipate that the entirety of the HHSS curriculum, including our foreign language offerings, will be reviewed,” he told the Chronicle.
“You have to keep in mind that languages are simply courses for the humanities in our current core,” said Carmelo Esterrich, a professor in the Humanities, History and Social Sciences Department. “So whether we teach an ‘Intro to Philosophy” or a ‘Spanish I’ class, they both count as humanities.”
Esterrich is teaching the only section of Spanish offered in Fall 2024.
In the Chronicle’s review of the foreign language course offerings, two levels of Spanish, offered per semester, were narrowed down to one, varying in level, starting in the fall of 2022.
In the previous core, students were required to take 42 credits, including nine in the “humanities and literature” category, which would include foreign language classes.
The new 30-credit core, which was adopted in the spring based on recommendations from former President and CEO Kwang-Wu Kim, will apply to incoming students for Fall 2024 and any current students who already have met the reduced requirements. The college aims to give students more opportunities to take courses in their majors, as the Chronicle previously reported.
The current core requires nine credit hours of Humanities and Literature, and nine of History and Social Science.
Under the college’s restructuring, the HHSS Department will move into a newly created School of Communication, Culture and Society, taking the foreign languages courses and faculty with it.
Associate Professor Luying Chen was originally hired in the Fall of 2013 to teach Asian humanities: courses that specifically explore South and East Asian ideas, arts, languages and cultures.
Instead, she has taught “Chinese 101” for the past 10 years, with the exception of her sabbatical in the 2019-2020 academic year. During this period, Chinese was not offered, as no other instructors were available, she said. After carrying the Chinese curriculum, Chen thinks it’s time the college finds a part-time instructor to take over.
“I don’t mind teaching Chinese; in fact, it has been my passion to teach Chinese since the beginning of my career,” she said. “However, I wasn’t hired to teach Chinese. I am happy that I could step in 10 years ago and have taught for as long as I could, but this is not a long-term solution.”
During the part-time faculty strike in Fall 2023, the union successfully negotiated the return of a section of Japanese that had been removed from the Spring 2024 course catalog, as the Chronicle previously reported.
It’s been harder to find part-time instructors for the language courses. Many part-time instructors teach at multiple colleges.
The Chronicle e-mailed and left phone messages for several part-time instructors who did not respond by time of publication.
King, who came to Columbia in Fall 2019 when there were 10 sections of foreign language classes offered, said enrollment patterns also factor into whether a specific foreign language is offered or not. He pointed to the Arabic courses as an example.
Prior to removing it from the course catalog, “Arabic I: Language and Culture” was typically offered every fall and “Arabic II: Language and Culture” was offered in the spring. The college stopped offering “Arabic II” after not hitting minimum enrollment targets when only six out of 18 slots were filled in Spring 2018. “Arabic I” was last offered in the Fall of 2019.
As King described much about the new Core to be “unknown,” he said it’s important to keep foreign languages in the Columbia curriculum.
“Language instruction has long been fundamental to the humanistic tradition,” he said. “Many faculty members in HHSS believe this should continue in the future as we strive to provide a world-class global education.”
Esterrich said he felt similarly that keeping languages available as a part of the humanities curriculum is in their best interest, both in and out of the classroom.
“Languages and language-learning, in my humble opinion, are essential to education, period,” he said. “Knowing how others think and speak, to me, is essential to understanding, compassion and is a civic responsibility. I always tell my students that the best thing they can do is to get out of the U.S. for a while so they learn how others live, think, eat, and see the world.”
Copy edited by Trinity Balboa
Resumen en Español:
Columbia ha reducido significativamente sus ofertas de cursos de idiomas extranjeros debido a la disminución de la matrícula y la dificultad para encontrar instructores, lo que refleja una tendencia nacional. Los idiomas ofrecidos anteriormente, como italiano, árabe, alemán y francés, ya no están disponibles. En el otoño de 2019, Columbia tuvo una sólida selección de cursos de idiomas extranjeros y para el otoño de 2024, solo ofrecerá secciones en chino, japonés y español.
La reducción de los cursos de idiomas coincide con una disminución nacional de la matrícula de idiomas extranjeros, que, según se informa, disminuyó un 16.6% entre 2016 y 2021. La reestructuración de Columbia de su currículo central de artes liberales y un déficit de 38 millones de dólares son factores que contribuyen a este declive. El nuevo currículo central requiere 30 horas de crédito en total, nueve de las cuales serán Humanidades y Literatura y nueve de Historia y Ciencias Sociales.
Los líderes de la facultad y del departamento, como Rich King y Carmelo Esterrich, destacan la importancia de mantener la enseñanza de idiomas extranjeros como parte del plan de estudios de humanidades. Sin embargo, desafíos como la disponibilidad de instructores, el interés de los estudiantes y los patrones de inscripción continúan afectando las ofertas de cursos.
El departamento que alberga idiomas extranjeros se trasladará a la nueva Escuela de Comunicación, Cultura y Sociedad. Los miembros de la facultad abogan por la continuación de los cursos de idiomas, enfatizando su papel en la provisión de una educación global y el fomento de la comprensión y la compasión.
Resumen por Doreen Abril Albuerne-Rodriguez
