As of this semester, Albion College students cannot declare a major or minor in French or German. Next semester, no French or German courses will be offered, leaving Spanish as the sole modern language.
In December 2023, emeritus French professor Dianne Guenin-Lelle announced she would retire. This year, French professor Emmanuel Yewah and German professor Perry Myers announced their retirements as well. These retirements, in conjunction with academic program review conducted by the Curriculum and Resource Committee (C&RC), led to the decision to dissolve these programs.
What Happens to Current French and German Students?
Heather Betz, associate provost, said she collaborated with the chair of the modern languages and cultures department and the registrar to develop personalized plans for current French and German students. These tailored plans are designed to provide individual programs to students, ensuring program completion for each student, Betz said.
There are currently five German majors, two French majors, three German minors and four French minors.
Betz said the Provost’s office worked hard to ensure that each of those students felt supported not just by their department, but the administration as well.
On Dec. 3, students were emailed their individual plans, two days before the faculty would vote to confirm the C&RC’s recommendation and the administration’s decision.
Honor Slocum, Petoskey sophomore, is one such student with a German major.
When they got the email, Slocum said they laughed and thought, “well, that’s it I guess.”
Rylee Hesske, Romeo sophomore and French major who said she took one French class and realized she wanted to take them forever, “didn’t see it coming at all.”
“I understand why it’s happening, but I’m also still upset about it,” Hesske said, adding that she wished there was a way she could have finished out her major before they cut the program. “Starting to phase out classes, I think, would’ve been a better option.”
German, French Faculty Responses
Perry Myers, who has been a German professor at Albion College for 20 years, said he was not surprised by the dissolution.
“There is a general dismantling of the humanities across education in general, and that includes the study of foreign languages,” Myers said. “You see it in our high schools, you see it in our middle school programs, you see it at other colleges and universities.”
Emmanuel Yewah has been a French and comparative cultural studies professor at Albion College for nearly 40 years. Unlike Myers, Yewah was surprised and disappointed. He said he did not hear about the dissolution until “everybody else did.”
To Yewah, the decision signals that the institution is not “living the true meaning of liberal arts.”
“It’s no longer about where a student comes to be educated, to open their minds,” Yewah said. “It’s ‘how do they prepare me to get a job?’ and it really defeats the purpose of an education.”
When institutions lack money, they look for the smallest programs to cut, which tends to be foreign languages, Myers said.
“There’s not a direct link between learning a foreign language and a job,” Myers said. “I think that has caused, across the entire United States, budget-based curriculum decisions.”
Yewah said that maybe someone else in his position would say, “you’re leaving, so why care? Why care about what comes after you?”
“But if you have worked in a place for almost 40 years, no matter what work it is, you have to care for it. You have to care for what comes after you,” Yewah said. “There’s nothing to come back to, and that’s what hurts.”
How Was The Decision Made?
The decision comes in part from a recommendation made this fall to the administration by the faculty Committee for Curriculum and Resources (C&RC). According to Co-Chair of C&RC and biology professor Brad Rabquer, the committee began collecting internal data from departments last spring.
The committee was charged with “right-sizing” Albion’s student to faculty ratio by President Wayne Webster as part of the college’s Pathway Forward, Rabquer said. Part of those “right-sizing” efforts include academic program review, which involves looking at data on enrollment in courses and numbers of students in majors.
“From a program and staffing perspective, we were built to be a school of 1,600-1700 students, and we have not been that for quite some time,” Webster said.
Albion College Provost Lisa Lewis worked with the C&RC to conduct the academic program review. Lewis said the committee was guided by the principles outlined in the book “Start, Stop or Grow? A Data-Informed Approach to Academic Program Evaluation and Management.”
According to Lewis, the approach centers on three key factors: mission or academic standards, market analysis and cost and revenue margins.
Lewis said she and the C&RC looked at four elements when conducting the academic review of every program: internal student demand for courses, external employment market data using the data company Lightcast and market competition compared to other regions and the potential enrollment market.
Another charge of the committee is overseeing position requests. Meaning, when departments propose a new program or want to replace a retiring faculty member, they submit requests to the C&RC. This fall alone, the committee reviewed 14 position requests, Rabquer said.
When looking specifically at French and German interest among admitted students for fall 2025, according to admissions, out of 3,252 admits, only one was interested in German, and none in French, Lewis said.
After several months of working through data, feedback and deliberation, the C&RC made a recommendation to the administration, who made the final decision.
“Because of our staffing reductions, it was decided that we’d only have three positions that are tenure track to allocate out,” Rabquer said, adding that it was never about “reducing departments.”
However, the process of using the standardized dashboard will continue, Lewis said.
“Year after year as vacancies come up, the committee will be able to use that data set alongside the position requests written by the chair to make choices on how to prioritize the limited resources that we have,” Lewis said.
No Language Requirement
Associate professor of Spanish Elizabeth Barrios said she felt disappointed by the dissolution, but was not surprised by it.
“Institutionally, we don’t have a language requirement, making us one of the very few liberal arts colleges that doesn’t,” Barrios said.
Out of the 13 liberal arts colleges within the Great Lakes College Association (GLCA), Albion is one of four that don’t require students to take a foreign language as part of their general education. On average, GLCA colleges offer 4.9 modern languages.
As of fall 2025, Albion will be the only college in the GLCA that only offers one.
Yewah said that one of the things he felt could have been done, instead of a dissolution, “especially at this point where they’re revising their general education program,” would be to introduce a year of a language requirement to the curriculum.
According to Kalen Oswald, Spanish professor and chair of the modern languages and cultures department, there was a lot of interest among the faculty via a survey of having languages be “a more significant part of the new core.”
“The reality is that we live in a multicultural, multilingual society,” Barrios said. “And Albion, by not having a language requirement, having institutes and departments that don’t encourage students to take languages, they’re undermining the quality of the education we provide.”
Instead, Barrios said advisors and professors should encourage students to take language courses.
“I wish there was some kind of language requirement or at least strong encouragement to pursue Spanish,” Barrios said, adding that if Spanish grows and becomes stronger that opens the door for other languages to be part of the curriculum, like Mandarin or Japanese.
“But, if Spanish doesn’t grow, then there’s not going to be any room for another language,” Barrios said.
Myers said he views the dismantling of these programs as a “disaster” because to him, the role of education is not just about professional training, but learning to become a citizen.
“A citizen has to be knowledgeable of issues and has to understand how to deal with issues, and those issues are not just national issues,” Myers said. “It is a discredit to education to dissolve these programs, at a time where we actually need them most.”
Jocelyn Kincaid-Beal also contributed reporting to this story.
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