Williams Language Club
In service of the Williams College Language CommunityMission Statement
Williams College Language Club Mission Statement
We, as persons engaged in the learning and study of languages and linguistics at Williams College, find the need to establish an organization to support our endeavors in the light of the following conditions:
- The Language Departments are small in size and it thus follows that:
- In circumstances in which only a few students per class year major in any given language,[1] the establishment of a meaningful community within that Department becomes difficult.
- Faculty are often overextended by commitments to other Departments (i.e.: Comparative Literature) and require student assistance in language-related programming.
- The Linguistics Program is in jeopardy, requiring a response since:
- The study of Linguistics and the option to study Linguistics is deeply connected to the study of languages in general.
- Despite huge student interest in Linguistics every year[2], the Linguistics faculty was never expanded beyond one full-time professor. Furthermore, with the current sole faculty member leaving Williams at the end of the year and with college having no immediate plans to hire a replacement, the current momentum and enthusiasm is in danger of being lost, which would force any eventual replacement to build interest in the program from the ground up all over again.
- Future such responses must be achieved through organization and representation if the future of the Program is to be secured.
- If such a response were successful, the College would be able to attract more students interested in studying languages, student whose backgrounds and interests would be an asset to both Division I and the Williams Community as a whole.
Our purpose is twofold:
- To establish a vibrant community of both student and faculty language-learners and scholars
- This community will provide a forum for open dialogue about language learning and study at Williams
- This community will provide resources for students beginning new languages through a mentoring system focused not on language tutoring, but on course-choice and discussion
- This community will provide a space for faculty and students to discuss language-study at the College, collaborate on projects, plan/receive feedback on courses, etc
- This community will provide events (speakers, dinners, etc) centered around language-study topics
- To establish an organization that represents the interests of both student and faculty language-learners and scholars to the administration and broader campus
- This representation would aim to enrich the broader campus life by increasing awareness of language-programs, promoting study abroad, creating language-related events with mass appeal, and the recruitment of pre-frosh and maintenance of ties with alumni engaged in language-study related careers.
- This representation would aim to organize student/faculty support of various issue (funding, hiring, retention, etc) in order to present these issues to the administration with the full force of the community’s opinion
[1] According to data collected by the Office of the Provost, in the 2008-2009 academic year, 5.4% of all students at William major in Foreign Languages and Literatures (2008-2009 Common Data Set). The average number of majors from 2005-2009 was reported by the Office of Admissions thusly: Chinese: 8, Classics: 6, Comparative Literature: 8, French: 5, German: 3, Japanese: 3 Russian: 2, Spanish: 9.
[2] Professor Sanders estimates that between 5 and 10% of the total student body takes one of his classes at some point.
