After several years of discussion and a substantial increase of student enrollment in upper-level language courses, the College of Arts and Sciences has made little headway in developing the language department during the past five years.

Syracuse University currently offers five undergraduate language majors: French, Italian, Spanish, Russian and German, as well as more than 15 minors, ranging from Hebrew to Tamil.

But as Chinese, Japanese and Arabic continue to grow in popularity, the SU language department has not implemented majors or minors in these languages — despite previous conversations about expansion.

The issue is faculty, said Susan Wadley, former associate dean for curriculum, instruction and programming for Arts and Sciences, in an email. SU would be required to hire tenured or tenure-track professors who specialize in those languages, she said, and that would require a shift of funding from under-enrolled languages — like German — to those in demand — like Chinese, Korean and Arabic.

SU does have a tenure-track professor in Arabic, Wadley said, so a minor could be possible. More advanced levels of Chinese and Japanese are also available abroad, said professors in the language department.

After taking four semesters of Arabic at SU, Chet Davis stopped taking courses because he realized he couldn’t major in the language. Davis, a senior broadcast journalism and political science major, said he wanted to study a less common language to fulfill his Arts and Sciences requirement.

“I think that something stands out on your resume as a major, as opposed to a focus or even a minor,” Davis said. “It proves that you’ve had more expertise in a certain area.”

When compared to peer institutions such as Pennsylvania State University, Boston University and Tulane University, SU offers a smaller variety of language majors and minors. Both Penn State and BU offer Chinese and Japanese, while Tulane offers majors in Greek and Latin.

Gerry Greenberg, senior associate dean for Academic Affairs, said in an email that both Penn State and BU have substantially higher undergraduate enrollment numbers than SU.

SU enrolls approximately 13,500 undergraduate students, while Penn State enrolls more than triple that amount with 44,485, according to its website. BU is just slightly bigger than SU, with 18,645 undergraduates, and Tulane is smaller, with 8,338, according to the College Board’s website.

While not every language has its own major or minor, courses may fulfill other requirements, Greenberg said. For example, students who are enrolled in a Middle Eastern studies minor may count Arabic, Persian, Turkish and Hebrew classes toward their requirements, he said.

Since 2007, Japanese, Chinese and Arabic have added 300-level options to the course listing, said Tomoko Walter, a Japanese professor. During the last five years, Walter has also seen a rise in the number of students sticking with the language and enrolling in the more difficult courses.

But some students have become discouraged because they can’t minor in Japanese, Walter said, and many don’t see a point in continuing to study the language if they cannot put it on their resume.

Other students have actually told her they were going to transfer to a different university because they wanted to pursue the language at SU but were unable to, Walter said.

“Losing a student is really quite sad for me to see,” she said.

To add a new major, several faculty members must be involved to share the workload of the various courses offered and to create a curriculum for higher-level courses, said Rania Habib, coordinator of the Arabic program.

“Unfortunately, right now Syracuse University doesn’t have the financial support to be able to start a major or to hire new faculty,” she said.

Habib said she has seen a dramatic rise in the number of students taking Arabic since she first came to SU four years ago. Even at the 300-level, which is very difficult for students, there has been an increase of almost 300 percent, she said. A few years ago, Habib only taught two students in their third year of study. Now she teaches 14.

But three years of a language is not nearly enough to become proficient, Habib said. Developing a major or a minor in Arabic and other Asian languages would allow students to gain extra skills at higher levels, which is essential to understanding and maintaining the language, she said.

A certificate would also enable students to put it on their resumes and make them more likely to get a job after graduation, Habib said.

“Nowadays investments should be put into Arabic because it’s one of the critical languages, especially with everything going on in the Middle East,” she said.

Habib said she hopes SU seriously looks into expanding the language department because language classes provide students with invaluable skills.

Said Habib: “I hope the administration would be willing to invest more in languages, because languages are just like mathematics — they can be very creative and they can really energize the mind.”

Published on October 8, 2012 at 12:27 am

Contact Liz: egsawyer@syr.edu | @3sawyer