*Editor's Note: This is the frist in a two-part series examining the Foreign language offerings at USD.
Freshman Aaron Oestmann would take a foreign language course in Chinese in a heartbeat. That is, if it was offered at USD.
Oestmann, a business management major, said it is necessary for USD to offer languages that have become more relevant to the world in recent years, such as Mandarin Chinese. Not only are there more than one billion primary Chinese speakers in the world, but China is becoming an increasingly prominent international business player. More business transactions will be going through China, making Mandarin an important and relevant language, Oestmann said.
"We almost expect that we only need to speak English in the business world, but that won't be true for very long," Oestmann said. "I would take any opportunity I could have here or at any university to learn a language that has become more relevant in the world today and that is not French, German or Spanish."
With budget cuts and increasing competition among the departments, its course offerings of the language, linguistics and philosophy department is having trouble sustaining the French, German and Spanish and is unable to offer a wider variety of languages.
After 36 years at the university, Susan Wolfe, chair of the language, linguistics and philosophy department, said she has seen it grow and dwindle in the past years, Wolfe said.
"It's difficult to fund things all over campus right now," Wolfe said. "It's been better and it has been worse. The department for decades was wittled away."
Timothy Schorn, director of international studies, said he has seen international studies students transfer from USD because Arabic and Russian were not regular offerings as they had expected. While USD is the flagship institution of the state, it should offer more than French, German and Spanish on a regular basis, he said.
Schorn said the lack of language offerings at USD makes it hard to recruit and retain international studies students who want to see more variety in the offerings. These students don't necessarily want to study the languages that are perceived to be mainstream in the United States and at USD, he said.
"Considering we are a liberal arts university, languages are horribly underfunded and under emphasized at the University of South Dakota," Schorn said. "I think we need to expand beyond the three major languages historically and we need to get into the languages that have become more important than French or German today."
Wolfe said student demand for more courses would drive the push for more languages. Even though she would like to see the department offer a wider variety of languages, the department cannot offer so many classes and have under-enrolled classes, she said.
"We're monitored very closely to ensure we're using the money the state provides us in a responsible way," Wolfe said. "I have a wish list, but we need a sufficient amount of students wanting to take the course to warrant the position. We're all competing for a piece of the same pie, so students have to want it badly enough for us to warrant it."
Vice President for Academic Affairs Chuck Staben said though language is important to a liberal arts institution, the university is in an unfortunate situation where resources are contracting. There are unmet demands for Spanish and other languages, but more consideration is possible in expanding the language program if there was sufficient student demand by enrollment in these courses, Staben said.
"The unfortunate fact of life is that the university has limited resources and we are not able to do all we would love to do," Staben said. "We are in the unfortunate circumstances to fulfill our many missions, but at this point we need to carefully consider where we invest those resources to best benefit our students."
Wolfe said with increasing enthusiasm and demand for Spanish, a single Spanish 101 class might enroll up to 100 students where in-class teaching will be paired with software to monitor students' conversational development. Even though the demand for Spanish from students is increasing, the faculty doesn't seem to be growing. A part of the problem in funding other languages is keeping the Spanish classes staffed, she said.
"We're having trouble even making Spanish available for all the students who want to take it," Wolfe said. "We're having trouble keeping pace in Spanish and that is part of the problem."
Wolfe said students can complete their majors in Spanish and German through courses on campus, but it is more difficult to complete a French major since only two years are offered at USD. To complete the course, students may take a correspondence course through Northern State University or South Dakota State University. Russian is no longer offered at the USD, but Arabic was reintroduced this semester and enthusiastically welcomed by the students, she said.
Senior Tanner Spracklen said a strong foreign language program is vital to a liberal arts university. The department is doing all it can to offer as many courses and languages they can, but the department should complete the programs it offers by allowing students to get minors and majors, and then expanding, he said.
"The point of a liberal arts university is to open up your worldview with a diversity of information," Spracklen said. "You cannot fully understand culture without understanding their language. If you want to teach about the cultures, you need a strong language program."
Spracklen took Spanish as a requirement for his Bachelor of Arts degree at USD, but soon found himself majoring in it. He enjoyed the Spanish department at USD and after spending a summer in Spain, he said it is necessary to live abroad to learn the language.
"You can't just take classes to become fluent," Spracklen said. "You have to go there and immerse yourself."
Wolfe said she has seen an increase of students studying abroad to learn different languages. If students want to learn a language now, they leave the country to do it. Since only two years of French are offered at USD, an intensive five-week program at Pau University in France is an option for students at a cost of more than $3,000, Wolfe said.
"Many students are saying, 'I would love to do this but I can't afford it,'" Wolfe said. "I'm sorry that so many things about higher education are such a privilege. Intellectual ability and talent aren't confined to members of the upper classes. I would love to see more opportunities for students to learn languages that are on campus."
Junior Nathan Chicoine studied at Pau University after his sophomore year to earn the nine credits that would help him finish his French minor this year. He said it would help students if the university offered more opportunities on campus by making courses more available, but he enjoyed his learning experience abroad, he said.
"It would be nice if it was offered for people, but doing independent study and study abroad is really helpful for learning the language," Chicoine said. "It just provides a different way of looking at life. A different perspective from living in another country is phenomenal and it's really accelerated learning."
Schorn said the university needs to look closely at what its mission is and what the needs of the students, the state, and the country are and build accordingly. Looking ahead in the realm of international relations, international studies and business, the university needs to expand languages like Mandarin, Russian and Arabic, he said.
"The problem is we don't have the resources to support the languages we offer," Schorn said. "The university has to decide where languages fit in our theoretically liberal arts mission, and clearly we need to emphasize languages more. That means building the programs that we have and supporting them to the extent they need to be supported."