Why academe needs foreign languages
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Rosemary G. Feal, executive director of the Modern Language Association, explains why cutting foreign language programs could hurt other fields:
It makes no sense to deprive other humanities programs of the expertise that specialists in literature, linguistics, and culture can bring. To its credit, the English department at Albany ... requires students to demonstrate either reading competence in two languages other than English or advanced competence in one language (by taking a graduate course in that language or four years of undergraduate study). How will students take a graduate course conducted in another European language unless they choose to study Spanish? And what will be the effect on faculty members in other liberal-arts disciplines if they lose the benefit of colleagues with scholarly expertise in French, German, Italian, Russian, Latin, and Greek?
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