In the wake of Sept. 11 and the war in Iraq, Georgetown’s Arabic Languages, Literature and Linguistics Department has seen its class enrollment and number of students interested in majoring in the field increase dramatically, but the level of funding from Georgetown has not kept pace with this rapid growth. In the spring 2001 semester, there were 103 undergraduate and 54 graduate students enrolled in Arabic courses. By fall 2004, the number had increased to 280 undergraduates and 103 graduate students.
Although the University did raise the department’s funding by an unspecified amount this year, the budget has only provided sufficient funds to meet its immediate needs.
Most courses in the department are taught by non-tenure-track faculty, a normal practice in Georgetown’s foreign language departments. Because of the low number of tenure-track professors in the department (four, with a fifth hired for this fall, these adjunct instructors often teach a large number of courses, giving them less time to devote to individual students.
“This is really a question of quickness of growth,” former Department Chair Dr. Karin Ryding said.
“The Arabic Department is having growing pains right now. I would like to see more tenure-track professors teaching undergraduates in applied linguistics, as well as some specialists in methodology and research.”
One student, Krisztina Schoeb (CAS ‘07), claims that she was not rehired for her non-work-study position in the Arabic office this semester because the department could not afford to pay students who do not have federal work-study. Among those who were awarded work-study as part of their financial aid packages, the department can only afford to employ one, rather than the previous two students.
“I worked there all of last year, but they replaced me with someone who has work-study because of the funding issue,” Schoeb said.
Assistant Vice President for Communications Julie Bataille said that the University does its best to ensure that funding is distributed fairly to each department.
“Departmental funds are allocated based on enrollment trends, the number of majors and minors, curricular demands and whether or not there is a graduate program that places additional demands on it,” she explained.
According to current Department Chair Ahmed Dallal, the money crunch is reflective of a larger trend at Georgetown.
“We could certainly use more money, but so could everyone else. The University has to think collectively,” he said. “I understand that every department has needs, and some have been forced to take budget cuts. However, we cannot stay on the map and expand our program without more money.”
Dallal did acknowledge that the University has made a concerted effort to increase the prestige of the program by authorizing last fall’s professorial search, which yielded the hire of a new tenure-track professor who will join the faculty in fall 2005.
“Very few departments even got this,” he noted. “This itself is a commitment on the part of the University.”
