Spanish Dept. shrinks as demand grows
Students are turned away by lengthy waitlists during registration, which decreases enrollment and opens spaces after classes begin
by Andres Gonzalez
Editor in Chief
After losing two faculty members and two failed attempts to hire a professor, the Department of Spanish and Portuguese (SPAP) is gearing up to hire a new faculty member. Overcrowded waitlists have discouraged students from enrolling in some Spanish classes, resulting in empty seats after the beginning of classes and creating the notion that funding increases are not necessary.
On Sept. 30, the Spanish department began the process of searching for a new professor of Latin-American literature, according to Juan Carlos Quintero Herencia, chair of the Department of Spanish.
The department now has 17 tenure-track professors and lectures and about 15 teaching assistants to cover the 1,603 available seats for both undergraduate and graduate students in fall 2009.
The department has lost professors Jose Emilio Pacheco and Phyllis Peres to retirement, and expects to lose Jorge Aguilar-Mora, who will retire next semester.
In 2006 and 2008, the department had two failed attempts to hire a professor. The latest attempt was halted because the College of Arts and Humanities (ARHU) terminated the job opening due to the state’s hiring freeze, Quintero said.
ARHU officials refused to be interviewed.
In the past 10 years, the Latino population in the United States increased by 15 million, and the number of Spanish-major students at U-Md. has soared from 144 in fall 2001 to 240 in fall 2009. Spanish minors have also risen from 102 in fall 2005 to 442 in spring 2009, according to the School of Language’s statistics.
Yet, as increasingly more students try to register for Spanish classes they encounter lengthy waitlists of 20 to 30 people.
“The rate of the number of people in waitlist and what we can serve every year goes down because of budget tricks,” said Karen Krausen, undergraduate advisor for the Spanish Department.
Some argue that the Department of Spanish should have priority in receiving funding over other language departments because of the predominance of Spanish nationally.
“Although there is desire to reduce the program due to economic woes… the Spanish department should have a priority because now in the market those who do not know Spanish are in a disadvantage,” Quintero said.
“It’s fun to learn French or German, but when you graduate from college, if you know French it is probably not going to have a huge impact in your career whereas if you know Spanish it’s going to have a bigger impact,” Krausen said.
Dr. Lauretta Clough, acting associate director for academic affairs for the School of Langauges, Literatures and Cultures, said that “to make decisions about human and financial resources, you need to look both at an entire program and at individual cases.”
Clough noted that the Japanese Program has experienced an increase in majors from 55 in fall 2001 to 104 in fall 2009, but the program, which will hire a new faculty member, has only three full-time professors.
“We are trying to find solutons for unmet demand. We can [meet demand] in some languages, but not in all of them,” said Clough. “Spanish is one of the programs that we did not meet, although this time I have to say it appears we did.”
Although waitlists from June to August showed high demand and overcrowding in elementary and intermediate classes, such as SPAN 203 and 204, the number of enrolled students after classes began fell below the total seats available in classes, according to Clough, who referred to reports from the Student Information Systems (SIS).
In the classes in which there are low enrollment rates, “maybe the demand for Spanish is not what we expected and what we will have to do is to not put 10 sections next semester … [but] put eight. Then … we will decide, if there is a deficit we will put more if we need it,” Clough said.
The waitlists for SPAN 203, an intensive intermediate Spanish, grew from seven on June 15 to 33 by Aug. 15. However, on Sept. 15, after classes began, there was no one in the waitlist and there were 56 open seats, according to SIS reports.
One reason is that students in waitlists for elementary and intermediate classes did not want to wait and rather filled up their schedule with other language classes, according to Krausen.
“I tried to register last semester for a Spanish class and [the waitlists] were always really full,” said Elly Scholz, 20, a sophomore government and politics major. Scholz decided to take German instead because she needed to fill up her schedule.
Other students remained in the waitlist until the beginning of classes with the hope of getting the desired class, but they were turned away by first-day overcrowding.
Lauren Robinson, 19, a journalism sophomore, who currently takes SPAN 204 and 207, recalled how “at the first day of classes students in the waitlist were coming [to the class] and my professor said, ‘I’m sorry but there’s no room.’ She wanted to serve them but she did have room or any other section open.”
Enrollment also decreased after classes started because some students who receive an open seat in the desired class, sometimes realize that the chosen class is not adequate for them, according to
Clough.
The SIS report also shows that commercial and translation Spanish classes, such as SPAN 315 and 316, had prolonged waitlists and all available seats were taken after class started.
Professors for these more upper-level classes cannot be easily transferred to satisfy the demand for elementary and intermediate classes because their “areas of expertise are not entirely porous,” according to Clough.
Students noted the role of Spanish in any profession as a reason why more funding priority should be granted to the department.
“Chances are that no matter what I end up doing, Spanish will be useful because it is growing, more people are speaking it,” Scholz said.
Robison, who plans to become a journalist, said that knowing Spanish will allow her “to interview Spanish speakers, report their story and have some knowledge of their cultures.”
Quintero fears that due to the complexity of hiring a new professor, this year’s search might be difficult if the candidate, ARHU and the university do not agree on salary, relocation and position negotiations.
“The search does not guarantee that we are going to find a professor,” Quintero said. “This blessing of hiring a new professor might turn into a bad experience at any moment.”
Short URL: http://www.lavozlatinaumd.com/?p=175
Posted by
I’d like to say that you always offer valid information and I have been an fascinated reader of your site for quite some time. I wanted to say thankyou really
for all the good work you do!
I love your blog.. very nice colors & theme. Did you create this website yourself or did you hire someone to do it for you? Plz reply back as I’m looking to create my own blog and would like to know wheere u got this from. thanks