Correction: In the original version of this article, information was incorrectly attributed. Teofilo Ruiz, professor of history and chair of the humanities task force said under the new plan, tenured faculty, who often teach small classes with few undergraduates, would teach more students. Juliet Falce-Robinson, lower division coordinator for the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, was misattributed.
More than a year ago, a task force of professors recommended broad changes to the humanities division.
Today, few of these recommendations have been implemented.
The professors were commissioned by Scott Waugh, who is executive vice chancellor and provost, to develop ways to combat challenges presented by budget cuts.
After the report was released, Tim Stowell, the dean of humanities, called a series of campus-wide town hall meetings and initiated departmental discussions, but did not take action until November, when he announced his plan to propose a department merger in the languages. Faced with limited funding, language departments have opted not to replace retired tenured faculty. Since then, department sizes have shrunk to as small as three faculty members in a department.
To deal with this, the task force recommended six languages be merged into one department of European Languages and Cultures. The merger would combine the departments of French and Francophone studies, Spanish and Portuguese, Slavic languages and literatures, Scandinavian, Italian and Germanic languages. The reactions from department chairs were immediate. Chairs gathered mid-December and asked Stowell to postpone his proposal until they develop some alternatives to the merger.
They outlined the importance of quality and individual autonomy, which they said can only be achieved through individual departments. Under the new plan, tenured faculty, who often teach small classes with few undergraduates, would teach more students, said Teofilo Ruiz, professor of history and chair of the humanities task force.
Yet while much of the debate has focused on the language merger, this action cannot stand alone, Ruiz said.
Ruiz hopes any restructuring will also involve the creation of a center to manage language instruction for non-language majors and international students, as well as an institute to increase collaboration between departments.
“(The languages) don’t want to face up to what needs to be done, which is a comprehensive reform of the humanities ““ it doesn’t help to just do one portion and not do the others,” Ruiz said.
Stowell has taken steps to create a Humanities Center and develop Humanities-themed housing for freshmen. But the entire package proposed by the task force cannot be implemented simultaneously due to budgetary constraints, he said.
“There are certain points that the task force made that could be difficult,” he said. “You have to pick your battles, and if you try to do everything, you will do nothing.”
Much of the task force’s proposal was inspired by Stanford’s decision to envelop its individual language departments in one administrative unit. A new division of languages was created over the summer to oversee language instruction of non-language students. A separate language institute is now responsible for language majors.
“It was done for efficiency’s sake,” said Elizabeth Bernhardt, director of the Stanford Language Institute. “When people are together, they tend to (cooperate) more.”
Stowell visited the Stanford campus recently to survey the new language program there. However, he said he does not feel the Stanford model is feasible here because of the costs associated with implementing such a structure. Although he cannot implement the entire list of recommendations by the task force, Stowell said he will work with faculty to pursue actions that meet both of their interests.
“I’d like this to be more of a dialogue to get new ideas on the table and move from there so that we don’t lose any momentum,” he said.