If the attendance levels in language courses don’t pick up immediately (as in Spring 2010), almost all the language programs at the University of Northern Iowa will be cut during Summer 2010 program elimination decisions. This means that only Spanish will be offered with any regularity and all other language programs, including French, German, Portuguese and Russian, will be eliminated or drastically reduced to almost nothing. In the past, Chinese, Czech, Italian, Polish and Bosnian have been offered at UNI as well, but they have already seen the guillotine.

Let’s think about this: UNI requires foreign language for graduation. The general trend is students can CLEP out of this requirement or count their high school language courses. However, those who didn’t have foreign language during high school or would like to learn a new language during college will only have a single option: Spanish. While Spanish is an excellent language to learn, I am extremely disappointed in UNI for planning to eliminate the lingual variety that makes UNI unique for a small Midwestern university.

In a world that is becoming increasingly smaller, the importance of the ability to cross the language barrier is increasing, too. Taking away the chance to broaden horizons and learn a new language is an unforgivable blow to the student body. We have a right to learn a new language and we have a right to be offered more than one option. Cutting down the department of modern languages and turning it into the department of one modern language is only furthering the monolinguality that defines the United States.

Cutting down the department of modern languages will get rid of about thirty majors, minors, and certificates, including my major, Portuguese-Spanish. As a lover of languages, I cannot express how sad this makes me!
Many students need to fill elective hours in order to graduate: I strongly encourage registering for a foreign language to take care of some of those electives. Most language certificates are only 15 credit hours, which is the equivalent of four or five classes, depending on the language. Most language minors are around 20 credit hours. A certificate or minor in a foreign language (any foreign language) instantly increases your marketability as a future employee and shows that you are interested in the global community.

Even if you have already filled your foreign language requirement for UNI, learning a new language is also fun! Take it with a friend and instantly have a conversation partner and someone to study with. Introductory or beginning classes for French, German and Spanish are being offered for Spring 2010. If you are a French or Spanish major or minor, Intermediate Portuguese (about 80 percent grammatically the same) is also being offered and would be a neat experience, too. Classes are generally small so you do receive a lot of attention and help.

Please, during winter break think about taking a foreign language next semester. There is still time to register and save some of the language programs at UNI. (I’m taking German!)