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The Rice Thresher
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by Meredith Jenkins thresher staff Associate Professor of Physics and Astronomy Stan Dodds challenged the validity of several clarifications to the language requirement at the faculty meeting Oct. 19. The implementation of the language requirement was led by Interim Dean of Humanities Gale Stokes. At the meeting, Stokes, also a history professor, presented clarifications to correct problems with the wording of the original language requirement. These concerned the nature of proficiency testing and clarified which languages could be used to satisfy the requirement and were previously published as a letter to the editor in the Sept. 15 Thresher. After Stokes spoke, Dodds, a Wiess College resident associate, challenged the legitimacy of the clarifications. He listed several objections, including that Stokes did not have the authority to make some of the changes he proposed without faculty approval. "I think probably that the changes that the dean has felt obliged to make were done in good faith," Dodds said. "I don't mean to criticize Stokes extremely, but I do think that he's overstepped his bounds." After some discussion of Dodds' objections to the clarifications, Dodds attempted to bring the matter to a vote before the full faculty. President Malcolm Gillis said a vote would be against faculty meeting procedures because the item was not on the agenda. The issue has now been referred to the Committee on Undergraduate Curriculum, which will investigate and make a recommendation to the faculty at a later date. Committee Chair John Zammito, an associate professor and chair of the History Department, said the issue is whether Stokes, by making the clarifications to the language requirement, was implementing policy or making policy. It is within the dean's jurisdiction to implement policy, but only the faculty as a whole can make policy. Stokes said he believes that the authority to make these changes was delegated from Provost Eugene Levy and the changes were therefore in his jurisdiction. "The faculty passes a rule for graduation, and the person who is in fact responsible for putting such a thing into effect is the chief academic officer of the university, who is the provost, but he's not going to do it personally, obviously," Stokes said. "So in this particular case it's the School of Humanities who teaches the language, so it's up to me as dean to implement it." The original text of the language requirement specified six ways to satisfy the requirement. One way was "by earning on a nationally accredited standardized placement test a score equivalent to 'intermediate-mid' or higher, as defined by the American Council on Teaching Foreign Languages." After the requirement was approved, it was discovered that there are no nationally accredited standardized tests for languages. To address this issue, the faculty wrote placement tests and sent them to the ACTFL to be evaluated. The German and Chinese tests were found acceptable, but the French and Spanish tests were not. They have been rewritten and will be resubmitted. Other tests have not yet been evaluated. "Our solution is to write tests that do measure to that standard and then we get them accredited by a national entity," Stokes said. One of the clarifications made to the text of the language requirement allowed for the placement tests written by Rice and approved by the ACTFL to satisfy the "nationally accredited standardized test" clause. Dodds said he objected to the clarification, which called a test written at Rice a "nationally accredited standardized placement test." "[The Rice placement test is] to my eyes not a nationally accredited test, and it hasn't been administered under conditions that I think are particularly fair or reasonable, so I don't think that it satisfies what the faculty had in mind with Item 2 of the original proposal," Dodds said. Stokes disagreed. "Dr. Dodds thinks [the language proficiency tests] are local tests, but they are not. We are writing them, but we're writing them to a national standard," Stokes said. Dodds also criticized the use of an online, unproctored placement test, pointing out that new students who take the test over the summer before matriculation have not yet been introduced to the Honor Code. "For many of those students, passing that test means that some 18 hours of Rice coursework would be waived, so the stakes are pretty high," Dodds said. Stokes said he did not think it was likely students would cheat on the test. "People don't just suddenly get honest because they've had an Honor Code briefing," Stokes said. "I think that Rice students have a great deal of integrity, as they have shown once they get here, but if people do attempt to beat the system, there are safeguards when they get here - the oral proficiency interview, for example." Dodds also challenged limits placed on languages that may be used to satisfy the language requirement. The original text of the language requirement does not specify which languages are acceptable. The clarifications limit acceptable languages to those taught at Rice through the fourth semester, unless a student petitions the Committee on Examinations and Standing and provides documentation proving her ability in that language. Dodds said that all languages should be acceptable since the original proposal had no limits. "If the faculty chooses to make such a limit, that's fine, but the faculty didn't, and it's not the dean's business to do so," Dodds said. As it stands now, students who passed the placement test and the oral proficiency interview at the intermediate-mid level have satisfied the language requirement. The final form of the requirement will depend on what action the Committee on Undergraduate Curriculum takes on the objections to the clarifications. Zammito said he expected a decision on clarifications' validity to be made by next semester.
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