The Community College: A Position for Curricular Change in a New Era

Two recent reports offer some paradigm-shifting proposals regarding the teaching of world languages in general at the undergraduate level. The Modern Language Association's (MLA's) "Foreign Languages and Higher Education: New Structures for a Changed World" (referred to hereafter as "New Structures") and "Report to the Teagle Foundation on the Undergraduate Major in Language and Literature" (referred to hereafter as "Undergraduate Major") are the products of the ideas and perspectives of serious, thoughtful professionals from the four-year college and university sectors, the MLA, members of the legal and medical professions, and outside consultants. These reports propose several significant changes to the content and structure of the undergraduate foreign language major—changes that affect language curricula across the spectrum. Many of these changes, particularly in the area of pedagogy, are a validation of many teaching practices pioneered by community college faculty.

Absent from these reports, however, is a specific consideration of the community or two-year college perspective, a sector that currently enrolls nearly half the undergraduate student population in the United States and about one-third of all the undergraduate students in Spanish and Portuguese. These reports are to be commended for their novel perspective and laudable recommendations on teamwork, cooperative teaching, noninstrumentalist forms of language education—wherein language is not viewed simply as a skill or tool used to communicate information or accomplish a task—and faculty voice of nontenure-track faculty at four-year colleges and universities. However, the reports fail to specifically consider community college faculty or mention the contributions of academic institutions that are an essential link in the K–20 educational system. The pressing need of coherence in community college language programs, the implementation of mechanisms for steady progress from beginning to advanced levels of proficiency, the articulation of uniform outcomes and assessment, and attention to the particular needs of heritage students, over 52.5% of whom attend community colleges, must also be addressed.

It is helpful to assess the impact of these documents on curriculum development and reform at community colleges in tandem with two important sources of data. The most recent survey of the MLA on enrollments in languages in higher education includes data from community colleges and contains crucial implications for the teaching of Spanish and Portuguese (Furman, Goldberg, and Lusin). Research from the American Association of Community Colleges also provides data and an essential context for all these reports.

A clear goal, as articulated in "Undergraduate Major," is to "strengthen majors in our fields and attract new generations of students to what has been the traditional core of liberal study". That strength, of course, must be built on a foundation that rests on the first two years of undergraduate education, whether they be taken at a four-year institution or a community college. The most recent data from the American Association of Community Colleges indicate that community colleges educate, as noted earlier, nearly half (44%) the undergraduate population in the United States. In addition, the MLA 2006 survey on enrollments indicates that 33% of introductory and intermediate enrollments in Spanish are taken in two-year colleges (see Furman, Goldberg, and Lusin Tables 7a and 7b). There is a critical need to include community college language educators in this discussion and consider the specific issues and challenges facing them.

Constitutional Elements and the Integrative Major

"Undergraduate Major" reiterates the primacy of the study of language and literature in the profession and underscores the role that such study plays in developing the core outcomes of undergraduate general education programs. The foundation is laid in the first two years of undergraduate education and community colleges, institutions that actively embrace the goals and mission of general education, play a central role. The constitutional elements articulated in "Undergraduate Major"—a coherent program of study, teamwork among the instructional staff members, interdepartmental cooperative teaching, empirical research to assess the successes and shortcomings of the programs—provide a framework for examining the role of the community college sector in reforming curricula to meet the needs of a...