For those of us who study modern languages, as well as ancient ones such as Greek and Latin, the skepticism in American education that surrounds our learning a foreign tongue is all too tired. To wit, Lawrence Summers, former president of Harvard University, claims in a 2012 New York Times article that “English’s emergence as the global language […] make[s] it less clear that the substantial investment necessary to speak a foreign tongue is universally worthwhile.” (This, despite the fact that Summers acknowledges, both correctly and insightfully, that it is “essential that the educational experience breed cosmopolitanism.”)
Yet languages are not simply linguistic puzzles. Summers rightly states that acquiring competence in a foreign language requires a great deal of time. However, for someone who is extolled as an economist, his math seems to be off; learning a foreign language is an investment that does, in fact, pay enormous dividends. For one, languages have the power to create in people a discipline for lifetime learning. (And contrary to popular wisdom, discipline, not some Mozartean gift, is key to learning and maintaining one’s abilities in a foreign language, and the former is an admirable quality in any area of life). Plus, taking the time to learn a foreign language signals an interest in understanding another culture and history. This is indeed a critical message to be sending, especially for the United States, whose penchant for taking center stage in the international community is not always met with the acclaim of critics.
More relevant to Furman University, however, is the importance of the humanities in general and foreign languages in particular to a liberal arts education. As an initial matter, a liberal arts education fosters a spirit of free inquiry. The academy provides a space in which students are not guided exclusively by the constraints of immediate relevance and utility. Furman, with its myriad general education requirements, does a remarkable job of giving its students the tools (i.e., the ability to engage meaningfully with the human and natural worlds, to examine critically their beliefs and values, and to problem-solve creatively) to become active, thoughtful citizens. Furman’s foreign language requirements not only allow students superior access to some of the riches of Western civilization, but they also illuminate the liberal ideal of heightening one’s capacity to overcome real-life cultural barriers in pursuit of common understanding.
Still, the “liberating” aspect of a Furman education is not guaranteed. Because of what can only be described as misguided austerity measures, some smaller programs on campus are facing the possibility of being phased out. And as a former German studies major, which finds itself on the losing end of these changes, I find this appalling, particularly in light of the university’s intent to pump more money into athletics. (I want to be very clear about this: Furman has always been known for its academic, not athletic, prowess; we have Clint Dempsey, fair, but more often we receive plaudits for something such as producing more Ph.D.s than any other liberal arts school.) This direction in which Furman is headed compromises the university’s seriousness of purpose as a leading liberal arts institution. To be frank, I do not know whose strange priorities these are, but I suspect that they are those of neither the faculty nor the students.
This is not to say that one discipline, such as German studies, is more significant than another. Far from it. But students need exposure to the gamut of academia if they wish to be fluent in and knowledgeable of the culture of the West (and, as my Fulbright year showed me, able to explain this culture to those whose own is different). German writer Goethe is over two centuries old. However, even today we can still read and appreciate his work in the original (and the same goes for Homer, who is almost 3,000 years old!). This ability to link a culture and time is what makes language study so arresting. And what languages and other disciplines offer, together, cannot be measured in bottom-line finances or enrollment numbers. Thus, in my (never) humble opinion, Furman, as a liberal arts college, has a responsibility to provide an environment in which students can explore a breadth of disciplines and cultivate cosmopolitanism in the broadest sense.