Can Foreign Languages be taught anytime and anywhere?

Here is an eye opening interview with Chancellor Cavanaugh and Pres. Grunenwald. It reveals some important facets of the PASSHE mission that may not actually be form part of PASSHE's "official" mission statement:

Interview with Cavanaugh and Grunewald

A few questions that should be made after watching this video segment are:

1. Are Foreign Languages being considered as part of this effort to extend education to communities not previously reached?
2. Has PASSHE considered the viability of teaching Foreign Languages "anytime" and "anywhere"?
3. Will this new delivery method (one that is dependent of Distance Education) sacrifice existing educational quality?
4. Does a significant body of untapped students exist to substantiate the development or modification of language programs already in existence?
5. What is the cost of making these programmatic modifications (modifying the system for this delivery method)?
6. How will these modifications affect programs already in existence (BSE, for example)?
7. What are community colleges already doing in this area?
8. Will it be profitable or how long will it be profitable to compete for this traditional community college market?

Is PASSHE's financial situation really influencing program cuts?

Here are some interesting posts regarding the current “glum”
financial picture for PASSHE:

1.  Edinboro U
newspaper, The Spectator, reports record level of student enrollment for the
PASSHE system as a whole (http://media.www.eupspectator.com/media/storage/paper1345/news/2009/10/15/News/Passhe.Sets.Enrollment.Record-3803180.shtml
)

2.  WUDQ News of
Pittsburgh reports upcoming tuition hike (http://wduqnews.blogspot.com/2009/11/passhe-plans-for-tuition-hike.html
)

PASSHE Governance: Implications of its New Techno Savvy Corporate Style.

Market-oriented management styles in Higher Education aim to increase enrollment, create “brand names” (image identification), and incorporate for-profit sub-entities.  Inevitably, these efforts can affect the organizational structure of governance in the systems of Higher Education and alter its core values (pursuit of knowledge, social good, public benefit).  This is especially true when shared governance and community based models of education are replaced by trustees and administrators who seek to circumvent traditional channels of governance and implement new criteria of program evaluation using two proven socio-political strategies: 1) divide and conquer and 2) power lies in the control of information or the “spin”. 

Any Education Program under an administrative scrutiny based on “enforced accountability” will find itself frequently “out of the loop” and defending its educational value in terms of economic criteria or standards of popularity. 

Ironically, corporate leadership is not selected using the same standards of popularity, nor are political leaders held to such high standards of approval ratings as those of student evaluations that are supposed to top 70%. 

Moreover, what measures exist for the administrative accountability?  What standards are they being held to?  When and how will administrators be evaluated by student and faculty bodies?  Will this evaluation be as timely as the administrative record keeping that underlines the new measures of “enforced accountability”? 

Furthermore, where and how are the educational “profits” being reinvested?  When are low-profit-returning educational enterprises justifiable? 

Can educational for-profit strategies anticipate the real business sector’s needs and create new expanding educational markets? 

Can educational-skill-delivery and faculty regrouping / recruitment keep up with the pace of changes while maintaining the same levels of quality?  Will the pace and nature of these changes be cost effective? 

Will the push for entrepreneurial educational institutions ultimately clash with corporate-like educational centralization? Can any subsidiary institution remain culturally autonomous?

Finally, it seems that the key to corporate-like educational centralization is Distance Education.  Because of this reliance on technology, the Distance Education administrator assumes an important role as arbitrator of institutional culture/s.  More importantly, the success of this administrative role is dependent on clear articulation, description, and explanation of the Distance Education learning model and its ability to include faculty input in terms of program design.  This means from start to finish and includes upper and middle level administrative management.  Legitimizing such an initiative means guaranteeing  some residual form of shared governance and subsidiary autonomy.

Cloud Computing and PASSHE's Distance ED Package for Foreign Languages

I've have recently been reading about "cloud computing" and comparing this model to the PASSHE's distance education package for foreign language instruction.  The two seem similar in terms of organizational arrangement and deployment.  Comparing the two concepts bears some interesting parallels and contrasts:

1)  Initial capital expenditures at local universities seem to be lower when one distributes upper level language courses through Distance Education.

2)  Long term operating expenses have yet to be considered by PASSHE system.  These same expenses are frequently overlooked in the "cloud computing" model by subscribers.  In the "coud computing" model, it seems that the AOL consumer charge-by-usage system is being reinstated.

3) Quality of service seems questionable in the PASSHE model and no mechanisms have been put in place to measure and guarantee quality of instruction.  No one has made any study of Distance Education's marketability.

4) In the PASSHE Distance Education Model for foreign languages, the university system stills own the language "cloud"--the educational apparatus. Thus, PASSHE will not save significant amounts of money system wide in the long run.  The model represents simply a reorganization of Foreign Language expenditures.  No one has calculated the cost of this reorganization or the cost of maintaining it.

5) Given a system wide fee is not charged, the only apparent net savings will be produced in sister institutions where there is lower consumption of services.

6) Ironically, these same savings could be made these smaller institutions by producing (requiring) lower levels of foreign language competence and dismantling the foreign language infrastructure.

7) Essentially, the "cloud model" represents a push by PASSHE to concede in the reduction of "foreign language" consumption at local institutions where there is lower consumption (whether this be lower consumption in the name of unprepared students or an unaccepting academic environment.

8) Furthermore, the Distance Education model acts as an institutional umbrella to cover the weaker institutional consumers.  These institutions are being "systematically" protected in terms of accreditation and institutional image.

Language Level Outcomes for PASSHE Universities without Language Major Programs

1. Since students will only be able to reach the intermediate low level of language proficiency at a PASSHE campus without a Foreign Language major or minor program, their speaking competency will be limited to short, concrete, and predictable survival level statements.  They will only be able to speak about their daily activities, order food, and make simple purchases.  They will struggle will direct questions in the L2 and may make inappropriate questions, frequently pause, and ineffectively attempt to correct themselves.  Their pronunciation will be strongly influenced by English and only sympathetic native listeners who are accustomed to dealing with foreigners will be able to understand them.
2. Not being able to study past the 2202 level will limit students on these campuses to writing sentences in L2 that mirror familiar patterns learned in a textbook.  Their writing will be short and simple.  Their vocabulary will be very limited.  They will commit basic grammar errors, make incorrect word choices, fail to spell words correctly, and may not use correct L2 punctuation.  Their writing will only be understood by natives used to reading messages written by foreigners.  They will not be able to to meet basic work and academic writing needs at any foreign academic institution nor produce routine social correspondence.  They will not be able to handle time frames beyond the simple present tense.
3. Students will be limited in terms of engaging in any original or spontaneous conversation in L2.
4. Students will be limited to an interpersonal (survival) focus on languages as opposed to an interpretive and presentational focus.
5. Students will only be able to read the simplest of material in the L2 (greetings and social amenities) and will frequently misunderstand material that strays from rehearsed reading.
6. Students will not be able to study any L2 culture significantly enough to identify historic or cultural contributions made by these people in the many fields of study or activities.
7. Students will be limited in terms of cultural comparison, because they will not be able to engage in complex conversations, conversations about the past, or conversations that reach beyond daily activities.  It is doubtful that students will be able to question or see past cultural stereotyping.
8. Not being able to study beyond the intermediate level will prevent students from acquiring a language minor or studying to be a language teacher.  This will reduce the number of K-12 language teachers and prevent business, nursing, social work, and other students with related majors from building competitive résumés.  Career prospects will be reduced. 
   
9. Essentially, the local community will be forced to look elsewhere for any language related staffing needs and students will be limited to seeking work where no significant language study is valued.
10. Our universities will not be able to form partnerships with elementary and secondary schools to make available their expertise in international studies or language pedagogy.
11. Our institutional commitment to international awareness will be significantly shallower. We will not help students become “world citizens”. 
12. Travel abroad will be significantly limited.  Students will not be able to make life-time or professional contacts in foreign countries and may only minimally qualify for L2 language programs abroad.
13. Students will not be prepared to meet the language requirements of graduate level study.

Outcomes and Extinction

We (the foreign language faculty of PASSHE) have no idea as to whether or not the members of our academic communities realize or will someday “bereave” the effects of the impending PASSHE foreign language program moratoriums (the “academic extinction” of French, German, and Spanish language majors/minors). As “potential divorcees”, as the “academic animal” soon to become extinct, we receive few indications from our “beloved institution/s” of our value, few favorable environmental variables (checks to create a new balance) with which to reckon. Yet, just before this “impending divorce”, just before crossing the “brink of extinction”, our academic value needs to be explored by everyone in our communities. If there is any hope of reestablishing communication with our community, speaking from within and preserving our place within our community and within the PA State System of Higher Education, if there is any hope of reestablishing “environmental integrity” (community integrity) or assuring “academic survivability” (viability), we depend upon this type of conversation. It takes both “potential divorcees” to reestablish communication; it requires changes to the “environmental equation” to sustain the lives of our programs facing extinction. Our relationship and survival within our academic communities requires this measure of reflection, re/evaluation, and conversation.

So, for a moment, let’s set aside criticism (criticism from both sides, “self” and “other”), let’s contemplate each community environment from outside the community/system itself (no longer “plants” or “animals” competing for the same resources). Let’s consider our academic value, aside from being the “divorcee” that is “truly right”, aside from being the “more effective hunter” or the “too frail prey” or the “too slowly adapting plant”.

Essentially, we need to begin reflecting upon questions like these:

1. Which students (whether large or small in number) will no longer be produced autonomously and how does affect our institutions?

2. What academic skills will we no longer be able to provide our community? That is, what academic outcomes will longer be produced autonomously from within our community?

3. What does our campus community lose when these outcomes (these types of skilled students) are lost?

4. How will our institution’s image, brand, prestige, recruiting ability, and all the other variables of “institutional culture” change?

5. What are the ramifications of this loss in terms of other academic programs and in terms of our service to the wider community that feeds into/on our academic culture?

Obviously, there are more questions to be raised and I invite everyone to participate in this line of discussion. Maybe when this type of reflection is established, dialogue will resume, room will be made, and program viability will be seen in a new light with new direction.