Best Practices Conference in June, 2001

Davidson College

Participants:

• Dennis Appleyard
• Carolyn Ortmayer
• Homer Sutton

Project Title: Languages Across the Curriculum at Davidson College

Project Description:

To further internationalize our curriculum, we have chosen as our team project "Languages Across the Curriculum." LAC is the use of foreign languages in non-Foreign Language courses. We have read Next Steps for Languages Across the Curriculum published by the ACE in 1998 and hope to work with other colleges during the Global Partners Project conference that have implemented such programs in order to learn what has worked for them and what we should avoid.

We would like to use the "trailer" or "adjunct" model, in which an Art History professor, for example, would meet with qualified students (those who have taken at least four semesters of the FL) for an additional hour per week to discuss course materials in the target foreign language. Students in the course might take part of their tests or write a paper in the FL; decisions concerning the modalities of use of the foreign language would be made early in the semester as a part of a "contract" between professor and qualified students. We could also use bilingual students or advanced students in foreign languages to coordinate the discussion sessions. At Davidson, we do not have an hour system and we cannot give an extra hour of credit for such work as most colleges do. However, giving partial credit for a course counting towards the major or the minor might be enough incentive for students to choose to participate. For example, a student taking two LAC courses in Spanish could receive one course credit towards the minor in that language.

We have several tasks ahead of us. We shall have to decide upon the composition of a steering committee, which would ideally include non-FL faculty interested in LAC as well as FL faculty who will serve as liaisons to various departments depending upon their interests and expertise. Such a committee would verify that each LAC course meets certain minimum requirements for the use of FL. We shall have to survey non-FL faculty to gauge their interest in the project. Finally, we shall have to find sources of funding to pay faculty who teach the courses and FL faculty working as liaisons as well as purchase materials in FL for the library. Eventually, we would hope to be able to provide funding for non-FL faculty members to study FL during the summer to prepare for the LAC course.

Participants:

Name: Dennis Appleyard

Title: Professor of International Studies and Economics

E-mail: deappleyard@davidson.edu

Biographical Information: Dennis Appleyard attended Ohio Wesleyan University (A.B., 1961) and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor (A.M., 1963; Ph.D., 1966). He joined the economics faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1966, and he taught at Chapel Hill from 1966-1989. He moved to Davidson College in 1990. While at Davidson, Dennis has been Chair of the college's International Education Committee for several years and has been extensively involved with the college's Dean Rusk Program in International Studies. He directed Davidson's Semester-in-India Program in Fall 1996 and Semester-in-India and Nepal Program in Fall 2000. His teaching specialty is international economics, and he is co-author (with Alfred J. Field, Jr.) of International Economics, 4th ed. (McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2001). Dennis has also done consulting work for the World Bank, the U.S. Department of the Treasury, and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (in Islamabad, Pakistan).

Name: Carolyn Ortmayer

Title: Study Abroad Coordinator

E-mail: caortmayer@davidson.edu

Biographical Information:

Name: Homer Sutton

Title: Director of the Dean Rusk Program in International Studies & Professor of French

E-mail: hosutton@davidson.edu

Biographical Information: Professor of French at Davidson College since 1980, Coordinator of Study Abroad 1984-1994, and Interim Director of the Dean Rusk Program in International Studies as of June 1, 2001. Ph. D. in French from Indiana University,1980; A.B. from Davidson College, 1971.