In Autumn 2002, the UW’s Near Eastern Languages & Civilization (NELC) Department was so inundated with hopeful students that administrators added a fourth section of first-year Arabic to the schedule.
For the 2003 school year, however, department administrators realized that they lacked the staff and resources to continue teaching first-year Arabic to 80 students, said Michael Williams, Chair of the NELC.
“The good news is, you’ve got a lot of students with a serious interest in studying Middle Eastern languages these days,” said Williams.
Every five years the Modern Language Association (MLA) conducts a survey of foreign language students across the country, said Terri DeYoung, associate professor, NELC.
According to the 2002 MLA survey, the number of students studying Arabic underwent a 92.3 percent increase between 1998 and 2002.
In 2002, 10,584 students were enrolled in Arabic classes at “U.S. institutes of higher education,” according to the survey.
“That was a really significant increase from 1991,” said DeYoung, but with the increase in students, the UW is having a difficult time keeping up with the demand for classes.
“It’s a challenge for us,” said Williams.
Trends both nationwide and within the department suggest some of the increased interest may be a result of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
“It’s fair to say that the enrollment pressure has gotten more severe since [Sept. 11],” said Williams. “It’s made a difference.”
The number of undergraduate majors in the department had hovered around 20 for years, said Williams, until the spring of 2002 when there were about 30. This year has approximately 40 undergraduate majors.
"[The number] has been rising each spring exponentially over the past few years,” said Williams.
According to Williams, many students are now “attuned to the importance” of Middle Eastern languages in their careers. Several NELC graduates have gone into government work, he said.
DeYoung also acknowledged the effects of the post-Sept. 11 world.
“But of course, yes, after 9/11 there was a huge spike in enrollment ... tragic political events have a huge effect,” she said, comparing today’s interest in Arabic with the increased interest in learning Russian after the Cold War.
“Arabic is the language of a culture and civilization,” she said. “There are lots of reasons that you might want to study it that transcend the political interest of the moment.”
Despite the increases in first-year enrollment, according to Williams, many students discontinue their Arabic studies after the first year. This is not surprising with “a difficult language like Arabic,” he said.
Arabic is spoken by more than 200 million people in the world, according to Georgetown University’s Department of Arabic Language, Literature and Linguistics. It is categorized by the State Department as a “level four” language, meaning that it is one of the most difficult languages in the world to learn.
Over the past few years, the number of students taking second-year Arabic has increased as well, said Williams.
This quarter, for the first time ever, the department had a wait-list of about 15 students hoping to take second-year Arabic, said DeYoung. These are students, she added, who had already committed to taking the language, and who the department was unable to accommodate.
“We scramble to meet all of the demand that we can,” said Williams, giving kudos to his dedicated faculty, but adding “they need help.”
