unl/UNL_UndergraduateBulletin — pull request #374 by unl-creq (2014-05-09 15:38:48+00:00)
Title: Finalize Request #6566

The teaching of Spanish is in a process of transformation in the majority of our peer institutions within the Big Ten. We have identified two trends that illustrate this transformation:

1. The tendency to substitute a broad emphasis on culture for the more traditional emphasis on literature

2. The opening of the program to new courses usually labeled Spanish for the Professions, which
includes courses related to language translation and interpretation.

The changes that we are proposing confront directly these two aspects and, always, with the goal in mind of increasing the job prospects of our students in a global market. In fact, we are altering our program after rethinking our mission in terms of those competencies our students will need to have obtained after completing their coursework. We now see the acquisition of linguistic and rhetorical competencies as the foundation of our program, and the attainment of cultural competency, its leading purpose. Finally, we want to reach this goal, first, by increasing our students’ chances of gaining digital literacy and, second, by giving more value to the
idea of an interdisciplinary major after including the possibility of three additional hours taken in other fields.

In addition, we want to create a structure for our major that will continue to provide undergraduate students the opportunity to engage in research (via the UCARE program, through work in 400/800 level courses, or through work in senior seminars).

Having these objectives in mind, we propose a structure that combines flexibility and depth: i) the flexibility that will allow us to adapt to changing students’ needs/interests, and ii) the depth that would possibilitate that students engage in undergraduate research.

The proposal presents two specific changes with respect to the previous requirements for the major:

i) We have eliminated the previous two-track system (Literature and Hispanic Culture/Language and Hispanic Culture). Instead, we have opted for a one-track approach that will allow students to design with more flexibility their trajectory throughout the Spanish program (with a set of core courses in rhetorical analysis, linguistic analysis and hispanic culture). In addition, the structure proposed will allow us to introduce new courses into the curriculum. This, together with changes that will be proposed in the description of existing courses, will allow us to advice our students about the possibility of taking courses along three different axes—culture, language and translation—without putting in jeopardy our students’ ability to finish the major in four years, thanks to the axes’ communicability and, thus, the possibility of combining their corresponding courses.

ii) In addition, we have increased the number of required hours by 3 (from 24 to 27). The new requirements allow for a high degree of flexibility on how a student may complete these 3 elective hours:

a. A student may take a course in a related area (possibly in a different Department). We feel that this will encourage interdisciplinarity and the pursuit of a double major (also maintaining the objective that a student is able to graduate in four years).

b. A student may choose to take an additional 3 hours in a 400 level SPAN course, which would provide them with an opportunity to explore in more depth a particular area of language or Hispanic Studies.

The new structure will still allow a student to complete the major in four years. The following is a four-year plan. This plan assumes that a student starts a Spanish major with no previous knowledge of Spanish, and, thus, that s/he has to complete all the pre-requisites for the major. Please note that this assumption is valid only for a very small percentage of majors, since most students declaring a Spanish major have taken at least two years of high school Spanish (and they typically start the sequence at the 200 or 300 level). Still, we feel it is important that the structure will allow a student with no prior background in Spanish to complete the major in four years:

FALL	SPRING

YEAR 1	SPAN 101	SPAN 102

YEAR 2	SPAN 210	SPAN 203
SPAN 204

YEAR 3	SPAN 303	SPAN 305
SPAN 304	SPAN 317
SPAN 321/331

YEAR 4	SPAN 3xx	SPAN 4xx
SPAN 3xx	SPAN 4xx
SPAN 4xx	SPAN 3xx/4xx/or related
area