SAS plans incentives for language study

A task force rejected calls to make the requirement more stringent. In response to a task force's report last month, the Committee on Undergraduate Education formally proposed on Friday several measures to strengthen language study in the School of Arts and Sciences. While recommending that the language requirement itself remain unchanged, CUE endorsed the creation of incentives for additional language study -- including an optional language certificate program, more options for study abroad and the strengthening of current proficiency requirements in the final intermediate-level language courses. "Being able to tie in other disciplines to languages is crucial," Student Committee on Undergraduate Education Chairperson Aaron Fidler said, citing a Communications course taught in German as an example. The proposed language certificate would be modeled loosely on a program offered at Princeton University, which encourages language study beyond proficiency by involving independent work and additional courses in linguistics, literature or culture. The program also strongly recommends -- but does not require -- spending time abroad. Fidler, a Wharton senior and member of CUE, added that the certificate would "encourage people to go above and beyond" the proficiency requirement. Charged last year with chairing a task force on language and literature, SAS Associate Dean for Arts and Letters Rebecca Bushnell presented the group's findings to CUE in October. "We could do a lot at Penn to make language work better for people," Bushnell said last month. A CUE subcommittee drafted a response to the task force's report and last week submitted its recommendations to Bushnell and the task force, which is composed of professors from language, literature, linguistics and other disciplines. CUE rejected two of the language task force's original proposals: to increase the language requirement by one course or to pass the language requirement by demonstrating proficiency in two languages rather than one. CUE, which has recently proposed a pilot curriculum for the College of Arts and Sciences that would reduce the number of total required courses from 10 to four, generally moves in the direction of reducing requirements rather than adding them, its report states. Bushnell said she understood CUE's decision in rejecting the task force's proposal to increase the language requirement and in choosing incentives instead. "I'm not giving in," Bushnell said. "The incentives are clearly the way to go." According to CUE Chairperson and Mathematics Professor Frank Warner, Bushnell is now responsible for developing incentives for studying language beyond proficiency, such as the certificate program. CUE would review and evaluate any certificate program proposed by the task force in the future. "It is now back in my hands," Bushnell said, adding that she and a faculty committee will likely make up their own version of a language certificate, though it will not necessarily be the same as Princeton's model.

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