Photo by Xinran Li ‘23
Intermediate Arabic classes will no longer take place on the Mount Holyoke campus and will instead be offered through the Five College Consortium.
By Ladin Akcacioglu ’23 and Tara Monastesse ’25
Contributing Writer | Staff Writer
“If I [had known] they weren’t going to keep Arabic, I honestly wouldn’t have come,” prospective Arabic minor Sofia Nojaim ’25 said.
Nojaim is one of 13 students currently enrolled in the second semester of first year Arabic.
According to Safiyah Bey ’23, an international relations major, on Feb. 16, the members of the first year Arabic class were informed that intermediate Arabic classes would no longer be taught on the Mount Holyoke College campus.
“Traveling to any of the Five Colleges for this recourse could be a difficulty for many who might want to continue their studies in Arabic,” Bey said.
According to Interim Dean of Faculty and Professor of Spanish Dorothy Mosby, “Arabic … will continue to be staffed through our partnership with the Five College Arabic Language Initiative.” This means that introductory level Arabic will be taught [at] Mount Holyoke by a Five College language professor based on another campus. Mosby also added that “Students will also have access to the Five College World Language Center.”
Arabic is currently one of four languages offered by the College under the Asian Studies department — the others being Japanese, Chinese and Korean — and the only non-East Asian language offered. Arabic is also the only language currently offered at Mount Holyoke’s campus that can fulfill the language requirement of the Middle Eastern studies major. With the decision to eliminate Arabic classes at the intermediate level, this requirement must be satisfied elsewhere within the Five College Consortium. After this change, there is no way for Middle Eastern studies majors to fulfill their major requirements within the boundaries of Mount Holyoke.
With this decision to eliminate intermediate Arabic language courses from Mount Holyoke College, students, such as Nojaim and Bey, will need to travel beyond Mount Holyoke to further pursue their study in the language.
“I don’t know what other option I have but to transfer — ultimately, I’m paying a lot of money to take class[es] here, not at another school,” Nojaim said.
“Ever since my peers and I in Arabic 131-02 found out about the elimination of second year Arabic classes … several students have begun to mobilize and contest this decision,” Bey said. “The College made [this choice] without even consulting with the student body.”
Bey shared that a petition contesting the elimination of intermediate level Arabic classes has received 13 signatures from both sections of Arabic 131. “This is an issue that we as students will continue to advocate for, it is important for us to have the resources and classes that we need here on our campus,” Bey said.
Izzy Leake ’25 hasn’t determined their major yet but found themself gravitating towards Middle Eastern studies after taking Arabic to fulfill the College’s language requirement. Now, the prospect of having to commute extensively to fulfill major requirements has put a damper on their newfound passion for the subject.
“It’s discouraging students from pursuing higher levels in language,” Leake said.
As the College assesses its priorities when distributing funding to its departments, other language programs face similar uncertainty.
Professor Peter Scotto, chair of Russian and Eurasian studies, described the current situation at the College as a reflection of the struggle most liberal arts colleges in the United States are facing regarding how to distribute resources among various disciplines.
“At this point, I think anybody who has declared a Russian major… can get through,” Scotto said. “I simply know that the College has felt that they were spending too much on language instruction. They wanted to take resources out of language instruction and move them to other places in the curriculum. That doesn’t mean [eliminating] language instruction, but the question is always how much, and where.”
“I know … that the College wants to continue instruction in Russian and German,” Scotto said.
Speaking to the lack of language resources available at her disposal, Catherine Simons ’24, a Russian and Eurasian studies major, said, “I’ve actually never taken a Russian language class at Mount Holyoke,” Simons said. “I was meant to take intermediate [Russian] at Mount Holyoke this fall, but it was canceled right before classes started because of a small class size.”
In voicing her frustrations regarding the College’s lack of commitment to Russian language studies, Simons added, “I think that looking at low numbers of Russian majors can’t justify getting rid of [classes] when it’s so relevant to other disciplines as well.” Simons also mentioned that replacing departing faculty members seems to be the key to “not letting the department die a prolonged death.”
In an email to Mount Holyoke News, Mosby announced that she will be “convening a Curricular Action Committee … charged to make a recommendation for a creative and innovative structure to support teaching of language and culture at Mount Holyoke, with specific near-term focus on German and Russian.”
“This group will present findings via report to the [Academic Priorities Committee] and the Dean of Faculty’s office by the end of the spring semester,” Mosby added.
“The faculty have been in conversation for at least two decades about the state of teaching languages, literatures and cultures at Mount Holyoke,” Mosby said. “Declining enrollments and faculty resources make accelerating the faculty conversation on this topic urgent.”
“Student enrollments in languages other than English have been declining both at MHC and nationally,” Mosby explained. “Since 2017, the percentage of incoming students interested in the languages being discussed has steadily lingered below one half of a percent. By comparison, during the same time, we’ve seen interest grow by more than a half a percent in data science, politics and psychology.” Additionally, Mosby added that high interest has remained consistent in English, biological sciences and the pre-health track.
The future of the German and Russian language programs at Mount Holyoke is unclear. Mount Holyoke News will continue to follow this developing story.