THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, April 10, 1995 TAG: 9504100026
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 167 lines
``Como esta usted?'' ``Muy bien, gracias. Y tu?''
Just like that speaker in the standard dialogue of Spanish 101, enrollment in Spanish courses is doing very well, thank you, in public schools and colleges, both locally and nationally.
In the past five years, Spanish has replaced French as the language of choice at the University of Virginia. At Christopher Newport University, enrollment in Spanish has more than tripled since 1989. In the Virginia Beach schools, more students now study Spanish than four other languages combined.
``It's the up-and-coming language in this country,'' said Erin Clements, a senior nursing major taking introductory Spanish at Newport. ``Everywhere you go, you hear it. That's why I'm taking it, even though I'm having a rough time of it.''
French and German, the old standbys, have been big losers. A study by the Modern Language Association showed nationwide enrollment plummeting 30 percent in French and 38 percent in German from 1968 to 1990.
``With French and German, they seem more related to the academic world and the past,'' said Marguerite Wolf, a senior history major in the Newport class. ``People are more focused toward careers, and Spanish seems more useful.''
With the thawing of the Cold War in the 1990s, Russian is also less appealing to students.
``It's no longer forbidden fruit,'' said Natalie Kononenko, chairwoman of the Slavic languages and literatures department at U.Va., where Russian enrollment has fallen 45 percent in the past five years. ``It's not as strange and as exotic as it used to be.''
With today's tightened budgets, the ebb and flow of enrollment can mean life or death for some college programs and professors. The drop of interest in some languages has hit Old Dominion University's language department especially hard.
Two of the 12 full-time faculty members - the only Russian specialist and one of three German teachers - were told this year that their contracts would not be renewed.
The state is ``putting a great deal of pressure on universities to eliminate programs that are low in productivity,'' said Jo Ann M. Gora, ODU's provost. ``Russian is one of them; German is another.''
German degrees still will be offered, and a part-time instructor will continue to teach lower-level Russian classes, she said. But some professors question ODU's commitment to languages and say the move reflects the dangers of the state's dollars-and-cents approach to education.
``Once you chip away at base-line stuff, how can you call yourself a university?'' asked Robert A. Fradkin, the assistant professor of Russian, who is leaving for Duke University this summer. ``It just seems to me that a university that wants to call itself international ought to have strong programs in general languages, and not just Western European.''
Like much else in education, enrollment trends in languages are cyclical. Regula A. Meier knows. She began teaching German at ODU in 1960.
In the '60s, the university started night classes in Russian to accommodate the booming interest.
``We couldn't find enough people'' to teach German, said Meier, now the chairwoman of the department. ``We even hired someone for German with a B.A. in music.''
But in the 1994-95 school year, only 260 students are in German and 66 in Russian - compared with 1,260 for Spanish - ODU records show. Meier says it's partly because of military downsizing and the new world order. ``Just think how many personnel were over there,'' in Europe, she said. ``They're all gone.''
Spanish is booming, teachers say, because of the rapid influx of Spanish-speaking people to the country. In South Hampton Roads, the number of Hispanics rose 66 percent, to 22,663, from 1980 to 1990, census figures show. That, coupled with last year's North American Free Trade Agreement, has created a bundle of opportunities for those fluent in espanol.
``It's the ability to put it to good use,'' said Ingrid Watson-Miller, chairwoman of the languages department at Hampton University, where Spanish enrollment is three times that of French and German combined. ``Some students take medical Spanish to be able to talk to their patients. If you're a teacher in Florida, Dade County requires you to have the ability to speak Spanish.''
There's a less noble reason, too, students and professors admit.
``Everybody assumes Spanish is the easiest, even though it isn't,'' said J. Richard Guthrie Jr., language chairman at Newport. ``French pronunciation, they panic over.'' And the Russian alphabet is even more threatening.
Unlike most universities, ODU has suffered a 20 percent decline in total language enrollment since 1989. Both Fradkin and Meier blame the language requirement, which they say is too lax and has contributed to the department's current difficulties. Yet the university may further ease the requirement.
Majors in the College of Arts and Letters usually must take two years of a language, but most others don't have to take any if they've had three years in high school. Newport, by contrast, requires all students to take one to two years.
An ODU panel reviewing the university's core requirements recently recommended dropping the high school requirement to two years for students outside arts and letters. But the matter still is far from decided, even in the committee, and would have to be approved by the Faculty Senate, administration and Board of Visitors.
``Languages aren't seen as serious or academic,'' said Fradkin, who noted that all ODU students are required to take science, math, history and English classes.``Americans assume that everybody else in the world learns English, therefore Americans don't have to learn anybody else's language.''
But, even prospective English teachers would benefit, he said. ``If they've never had another language, they're going to be inadequately prepared to deal with students, many of whom have English as their second language. They're going to correct a paper, saying, `Wrong, wrong, wrong,' instead of: `I see where you're coming from.' ''
Gora said, however, ``I'm not sure a stronger requirement for every person makes sense . . . The average 18-, 19-, 20-year-old is not going to use the language in the next five years.''
At Newport, most students in the intro Spanish class longed for looser language requirements.
``I could devote more time to classes focusing on my major,'' said Sara Steine, a senior in psychology. ``How to conjugate verbs isn't going to help me when I'm working with a psychopathic person.''
Others said they wouldn't mind taking a language, if the classes were more practical. ``I'm learning the stuff, but I don't know how to use the grammar,'' said Liz Wolfe, a junior nursing major.
Wolfe said the public schools should have the stricter requirements. In Germany, where her ex-husband was stationed, children started learning foreign languages in kindergarten. ``I think we wait too long to teach it here.''
Recently released figures show that 37 percent of eighth-graders in Virginia - slightly more than one-third - have taken a foreign language.
In Norfolk, all of the middle schools and three of 35 elementary schools offer languages, said Ann Rolbin, the foreign language coordinator. In addition, 14 elementary schools have an ``exploratory program'' introducing kids to foreign languages and culture.
``It is always good to start foreign languages as early as possible, but I don't think that is a fair criticism,'' she said. ``If they start in middle school and take it in high school, they should have a fair amount of time and exposure. Why they don't continue in college, I don't know.''
The state's preoccupation with numbers, numbers, numbers irritates Meier.
``This short-range planning. . . . The minute it doesn't work, you close it down,'' she said.
Margaret A. Miller, associate director of the State Council of Higher Education, has prodded colleges to shut down or scale back programs with low enrollments. She says schools must make hard choices after years of budget cuts.
``The problem right now is we just don't have the money to do all the good things we want to do,'' Miller said. ``If students aren't interested in studying something, it doesn't make much sense to put limited resources there.''
Despite her staffing cuts, Meier holds out hope for the department. She's still trying to persuade administrators to let her fill one of the two slots with someone who could teach the more popular languages.
And she's encouraged that President James V. Koch already has beefed up the foreign language lab and tried to attract more international students. ``He even put down (in his resume) that he had German and Spanish,'' she said.
``I would like to leave this department in better shape than it is in now, and I have hopes.'' MEMO: Staff writers Jon Glass, Lise Olsen, Elizabeth Thiel and Vanee Vines
contributed to this story.
[For a related story, see page B3 of The Virginian-Pilot for this
date.]
ILLUSTRATION: [For a copy of the INFOLINE box, see microfilm.]
CHART
SPANISH IS THE BIG WINNER
Five-year trends for annual enrollment in language courses at local
colleges and school systems.
ADRIANA LIBREROS/Staff
SOURCES: Colleges and universities, public school systems
[Chart was not available electronically.]
[For a copy of the chart, see microfilm on page B3 for this date.]
KEYWORDS: EDUCATION FOREIGN LANGUAGES by CNB