A number of UCLA language departments are teetering on the brink of disaster, only they don’t want to admit it. Faced with a shrinking budget, the humanities division is unable to replace many retiring faculty members. As a result, most academic areas are expected to contract in the coming years.
For a large department like history, whose website lists 81 professors, a smaller faculty could mean fewer classes and higher student-to-professor ratios. This is an unfortunate, although manageable, reality.
But consider a department like Germanic languages, which has only eight faculty members, or Italian, which has four. These languages are already struggling to offer enough courses to sustain a major. When professors retire, the only recourse may be to kill off departments.
The best solution is consolidation, and the humanities division has been pushing a plan to merge six language departments into one. It’s not been a very popular idea.
The chairs of the departments under scrutiny have spoken out openly against a merger, and humanities dean Tim Stowell himself said most language professors are not on board with the proposal.
In a letter to the administration, the chairs claimed such a plan would cause “grave harm” to the reputations of the languages involved.
Yet they worry about academic ranking at a time when the languages could become entirely obsolete. This is like pointing out chipped paint on a house where the roof is about to come down.
Some doubt the consolidated languages would be able to retain proper autonomy. Departments like history and comparative literature, though, already combine studies from different regions and still function smoothly. No one would suggest creating separate departments of Latin American and North American history.
If anything, a unified department would open gates for faculty from different fields to collaborate and broaden their areas of expertise. This could be a necessary step forward if the languages are to survive the budget crisis.
The dean believes many professors are opposed to the merger because change is difficult to accept. For current faculty this might be true, but the impact on students, at least, should be negligent. Classes and majors would stay the same, and access to counseling would be unaffected.
If nothing else, a merged department would cut down on the number of administrative positions. Department chairs are allowed to teach fewer classes than other professors, so fewer chairs would mean more course offerings.
No one is suggesting this as a silver bullet solution, but it’s a lot better than the do-nothing alternative. Greater cuts are on the horizon ““ this is not a time for inaction.