Won and done Hawks duke it out for 1-0 win, Pg.15
THE HAWK THE HAWK September 24, 2014 Oct. 21, 2015
The Student Newspaper of Saint Joseph’s University | Volume XCIV | Est. 1929 | www.hawkhillnews.com
Main campus move
Career Development Center moves to Cardinal Residence property KATRYNA PERERA ’16 News Editor
Matthew Erlandson, ‘18, explores the Appropriated Book art gallery in Boland Hall on Monday, Oct. 19. Photo by Matthew Haubenstein, M.A. ’15
Withstanding the test of time A look into trends of language learning CAT COYLE ’16 Editor in Chief It’s no secret that more people are speaking Español in the United States. In the past thirty years, the amount of people in the U.S. learning a language has more than doubled. And language learning at Saint Joseph’s University generally follows this national pattern, said Thomas Buckley, Ph.D., assistant professor of German and chair of modern and classical languages. In 1980, 378,952 people in the U.S. studied Spanish, but by 2013 that number had risen to 790,756, according to a Modern Language Association study. This explosion of Spanish language study most likely correlates with the increased population of native speakers in the U.S. When a language is spoken more often, some see it as a more practical course of study, Daniel said. “Spanish is here to stay,” Buckley said. But while more and more seats in Spanish 101 fill quickly, not all modern languages are seeing upward growth. French, for example, has seen a 20.1 percent decrease in study since 1980, according to the MLA. This semester, the current French enrollment, or total number of seats occupied in French classes at St. Joe’s, is 151. In the fall of 2013, that figure was 184, and in 2002 there were 238 students learning French, according to Robert Daniel Jr., Ph.D., assistant professor of French. At the moment, the university has about nine French majors and about 10 minors, Daniel said. Because the program does not have huge enrollments, the department is unable to offer a large number of upper-division courses. But there are some benefits to such a different environment, he said. “Because we are so small, we can devote significant attention to each student, and we do try to offer the courses that are going to be most satisfying or most useful for the students,” Daniel said. ‘The world according to me’ The ever-changing world of politics is at least partly to
blame for these shifting numbers. In the last century, German was considered “the language to learn,” until two catastrophic world wars drew it all to an effective halt, Buckley said. At this point, Buckley is the only full-time German faculty member at Saint Joseph’s. “My situation is completely unusual,” Buckley said. “It poses certain challenges.” One of those is the pedagogical disadvantage: having only one professor means only one perspective on a given subject or language, he said. “The world according to me, after a while, is not the world,” Buckley said. This semester the German department has added another professor to teach a second level course. Buckley is now attempting to arrange the courses in a way that will allow students to experience at least two different professors during their German studies. And any given geographical region has varying levels of language popularity. At Saint Joseph’s, Italian is the second-most studied language. One possible reason for this is a large amount of incoming students with Italian heritage that express interest in learning their ancestors’ language, Buckley said. In addition to the well-known and largely offered modern languages, the university also offers Russian, a program that is still “really quite tiny,” Buckley said. The growing Chinese program, initiated in 2000 under Thomas Donahue, Ph.D., who was then department chair, is seen as immensely practical for those in the Saint Joseph’s international business program, Daniel noted. Both have been dubbed as ‘critical languages’ that the U.S. government has encouraged citizens to study. In fall of 2013, there were only 35 students learning Chinese, Daniel said. “When Chinese started, it was a really small program,” Daniel said. “We had intermediate level Continued LANGUAGE, Pg. 3
The main campus of Saint Joseph’s University has a few new residents. Moving officially on Wednesday, Oct. 14, the Career Development Center is now permanently located on the Cardinal Residence Property and is open for business. As soon as students or employers enter the building there is a waiting space with a “Genius Bar,” which will soon be set up with iPads for students and employers to use while waiting for interviews and workshops. All the interview rooms are located along the main corridor of the building, and according to Trish Shafer, executive director of the Career Development Center, this set-up is something different than what they were accustomed to in their old residence in Moore Hall. In the old space not all the interview rooms were located in the same area, and this separation caused a problem for both students and employers, Shafer said. “You had to run [through] a maze to even find them,” Shafer said. There is also a collaboration space and kitchen located at the back of the new building on the first floor. This space, according to Shafer, will be used to hold workshops, employer luncheons, and small information sessions. All of the technology in the new space was donated by a family from the Loyola Society which is a group of philanthropic supporters of the university. Continued CAREER, Pg. 3
Photo by Joey Toczylowski ’19