1 October 2008
To:
Wayne Quirk, Provost
Tracy Pellett, AVP for Undergraduate Studies
From:
Marji Morgan, Dean, College of Arts and Humanities
Re:
2007-2008 Program Review, Department of Foreign Languages
c:
Josh Nelson, Chair, Department of Foreign Languages
________________________________________________________________________________
I write to provide commendations and recommendations as part of the program review process for the
Department of Foreign Languages. These remarks are based on the Department’s Self-Study and the
external reviewer’s evaluation, and take into account college mission and resources. I received the
external reviewer’s report late in the spring quarter, so did not have time to meet with the department
about the review. I will do so early in Fall quarter. I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone
involved in this review process, especially the Foreign Languages faculty and Dr. James Grabowska, as I
know how very time consuming the review process is for everyone involved.
COMMENDATIONS
Dr. Grabowska offered strong praise for the Department of Foreign Languages faculty, especially for their
commitment to students and to supporting each other. I couldn’t agree more with this evaluation. The
faculty are very dedicated to their students and to outstanding teaching, and their classroom performance
and mentoring are exemplary. I also really appreciate their commitment to study abroad, to
interdisciplinary programs, and to student clubs. The faculty are also very supportive of each other, and
their collegial spirit is palpable when one visits the department. This is due in part to Chair Nelson’s
leadership, and I want to commend him for helping to maintain cohesiveness within the department.
I want to applaud the department for its commitment to study abroad and to working closely with the
International Studies office and the East West Center. Foreign languages faculty lead many study abroad
trips and also require study abroad experiences in some of their language programs. They also regularly
host faculty here on exchange, who contribute greatly to the internationalization of the campus.
The Department has done impressive outreach activity that should help with recruitment in the long term.
They continue to host World Languages Day that brings several hundred K-12 students to campus for a
day to learn more about other languages and cultures. They have also more recently got involved in the
Cornerstone program, which should help to attract students to Central and to Foreign Languages as a
major or minor. This kind of bridge building between Central and the regional high schools is very
important and should be supported in every possible. I look forward to supporting all of the above
commitments and activities in any way that I can.
RECOMMENDATIONS
The external reviewer offered some specific recommendations that seem to fall into one of four
categories: strategic planning, assessment, recruitment, and faculty development. I will address each of
these below.
Strategic Planning – In his observations Dr. Grabowska stated, “The Department of FL has yet to fully
engage with the question of direction and how to grow.” I agree with this observation. The previous
program review suggested that the department develop a strategic plan, but this has not been done. It is
essential that the department develop a strategic plan that includes a mission, vision, and set of goals, with
metrics or action items indicating how the goals will be achieved. Ideally, the plan should include
staffing goals for the future, as justifications for hires should always include reference to long-term
plans/goals regarding staffing, curriculum, and growth. In which direction(s) should the department grow
and why? Does/should the department do more than simply service other units? In other words, does it
have a mission in its own right, perhaps as a leader in the area of international education? These are the
type of questions that faculty must grapple with this coming year and beyond.
Assessment - All departments including foreign languages have made progress this year in developing
assessment plans that are now mandated across the country at every level of education. It’s my
understanding that departments will soon receive feedback on their assessment plans and reports from the
Office of Undergraduate Studies. That feedback and the suggestions made by Dr. Grabowska should help
the department to develop a plan that will lead to useful information, meaning information that reveals
how well students are learning, tells how well the department is doing in meeting its goals, and can be
used to improve student learning. It is good that the department has developed alumni and exit surveys,
but these need to be accompanied by more direct methods of assessment—other than grades—that
measure student learning in relation to each of the student learning outcome goals. At a minimum, the
department should have an end-of-program means of assessing student learning in relation to the student
learning outcomes it has identified in it assessment plan. This might be a standardized test (Praxis II) or a
capstone course or other experience. Ideally, it would be good to have an assessment mechanism such as
a placement exam when students enter a program, combined with an end-of-program assessment tool, and
to have these things for all languages offered as major programs.
Recruitment - The program review data indicate that each language experiences an approximate 50%
drop in enrollment between first and second year sequences. While some attrition is understandable,
given that many students take only the minimum language required by the university, it might be possible
for the department to make better use of its general education courses for recruitment into second year
classes, minors and perhaps first or second majors. I agree with Dr. Grabowska that the department
should develop a plan for making better use of general education courses to educate students about the
importance of knowing multiple languages for the 21st century global workplace. One thing that might
help is to establish some innovative living learning communites, such as one for business and Spanish, or
business and Japanese or Chinese. Contacting ROTC, as Dr. Grabowska suggests, is also an excellent
idea. What we’re both saying is that the department needs to take advantage of every opportunity to
educate students and faculty in CAH and other colleges about the critical importance of language
knowledge for the 21st century, and I look forward to assisting with this effort.
FL faculty have indicated an interest in improving advising. Offering improved advising is a key thing
the department can do to enhance both recruitment and retention. I like Dr. Grabowska’s idea of a
workshop on advising, and I would be happy to help obtain funding for such a workshop. I am also a
strong believer in a single dedicated faculty advisor in each department, who has reassigned time to do
advising for all undergraduate majors. If this would work in the FL Department I would be happy to
discuss the idea further.
Faculty Development – I strongly agree with Dr. Grabowska regarding the importance of faculty
development “to encourage scholarly agendas that encompass not only textbooks and translations, as well
as creative output such as poetry, but scholarly articles that touch on all areas of the broader language
curricula represented in the department.” I also agree that encouraging more conference presentations is
good, as such presentations ideally lead to articles. The scholarship of teaching is also important, and we
must do everything we can to provide mentoring and support for these various scholarship activities.
When it is finally approved, the department’s new faculty performance criteria document should help
with mentoring faculty in teaching, scholarship and service activities.
As scholarship criteria have become more formalized, workload assignments for scholarship have also
become more clearly defined. We must work to ensure that all faculty engaged in scholarship have
reasonable workload units for such work. But we must also provide resources for conference travel,
course reductions for new faculty, sabbaticals, research and teaching grants, and workshops. Over the
past three years, I have increased travel money in the college, so that nearly all worthy travel requests are
funded. I have also increased funding for summer grants, so that instead of one grant at $1500, we now
have as many as 4 or 5 at $2500—some for research and some for teaching innovations. Grad studies has
also enhanced its grant support, and we have had several grant writing workshops in the college. We
have also had workshops related to teaching issues, to assist faculty in this area. We can still do more,
and the new Teacher Scholar Center should provide faculty with many more development opportunities in
the areas of teaching and scholarship especially. I look forward to supporting the Center, and to
enhancing faculty development resources in our college.
SUMMARY
There is no question that the Department of Foreign Languages is composed of outstanding faculty who
are dedicated to their students. There is a strong sense of community in the department, reflected by the
high level of collegiality. This should make establishing a strategic plan easier than it is in some
departments, and such a plan is critically important to the department’s future direction. As the faculty
develop a more effective assessment plan, the caliber and needs of their students should be more
transparent, making curriculum improvement an easier and more effective process. I look forward to
working with foreign languages faculty, staff and students in an effort to support the department as it
works to define its future direction, better assess its students, improve recruitment, and balance the
various areas of faculty responsibility.