[lg policy] WKU faculty approve further changes to foreign language requirement

[Harold Schiffman]

 WKU faculty approve further changes to foreign language requirement

   - By AARON MUDD amudd at bgdailynews.com
   <https://www.bgdailynews.com/users/profile/Aaron%20Mudd>
   - Mar 23, 2018
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Students at Western Kentucky University will be able to use two years of a
high school world language to fulfill the university’s foreign language
requirement through the 2019-20 academic year, following faculty approval
Thursday.

Faculty members of WKU’s University Senate voted in December to approve the
change for the 2017-18 academic year to clear a backlog at the time of
roughly 7,000 students who hadn’t met the university’s foreign language
requirement.

During their monthly meeting Thursday, faculty senators initially
considered extending the policy to the 2018-19 academic year but ultimately
decided to extend it another year.

Jerry Daday, a sociology professor who proposed the original change in
December, urged faculty to take action to prevent future backlogs. He said
the university is expecting students to show up for orientation for two
weeks and needs to know where it stands.

“The reality is, if we do nothing, students show up in two weeks and our
existing world language proficiency requirement is on the table,” he said.

Previously, students had to take either a 102-level course or take the
STAMP test. That’s a test that comes with a $35 fee and takes more than two
hours to complete with a computer.

With the policy change extended, faculty will now develop a foreign
language placement test for future incoming students. The test will
determine what level of language study students need or if they’re already
proficient by the university’s standards.

Daday previously told the Daily News that the test could be given in the
spring or summer before a student comes to WKU or at orientation. It would
also be cheaper and less time-consuming than the STAMP test, taking only
about 30 minutes to take.

Over time, the new approach could tame the demand for language instruction
at WKU, preventing future student backlogs altogether. The university only
offers 2,300 seats a year and sees more than 3,000 new students enroll each
year, Daday said Thursday.

Faculty in the Department of Modern Languages will have until October 2019
to present the results of their pilot placement test.
[image: advertisement]

Faculty also approved a resolution asking WKU President Timothy Caboni to
renegotiate a 20-year dining services contract with Aramark in exchange for
renovating the Garrett Conference Center.

Faculty Regent Claus Ernst has previously said the deal will raise
students’ dining fees.

“The problem I see with this is this is predominantly financed by dining
fees,” he said at a previous meeting. “So we currently have a $75 fee for
students who are not signing up for any meal plan. This will rise to $150
in the fall. It will rise to $300 the fall thereafter. It will rise to $350
thereafter, and it’s a per semester fee.”

Ernst has said WKU’s Board of Regents didn’t approve the contract because
its bylaws give the president that authority. The contract was signed by
then-President Gary Ransdell.

Anthropology professor Kate Hudepohl spoke out against the deal at the
University Senate’s meeting Thursday.

“This is a horrible contract that should not have happened,” she said.

– Follow education reporter Aaron Mudd


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 Harold F. Schiffman

Professor Emeritus of
 Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone:  (215) 898-7475
Fax:  (215) 573-2138

Email:  haroldfs at gmail.com
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

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