The University Senate voted Monday against a proposal that would have lowered the minimum Language Other Than English requirements for online degree completion programs. The final vote tally was 59 for and 86 against with 15 abstentions.
Both advocates and critics, including students, professors and two deans, delivered passionate speeches preceding the vote in a packed Illini Union Ballroom.
The proposal would have made it possible for online degree programs, which are geared toward older adult students who have completed some college but not obtained a degree, to lower their language requirements from three levels to two.
Nolan Miller, education policy committee chair and professor in Business, introduced the proposal to the Senate.
“This is a compromise,” Miller said. “It’s intended to increase access to an Illinois education for the large and important group of students with some college but no degree, who are typically older, working full time and unable to attend a residential program due to career and family commitments.”
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Aurore Mroz, director of graduate studies for the Department of French & Italian and professor in LAS, spoke against the proposal.
“If our goal is better employability for these students in an AI era, we need to prepare them for the type of human capacities that AI cannot replace, and that engineers and AI developers are calling for, that’s to say, multilingual workers who can collaborate,” Mroz said.
Mroz added that, in an era of anti-immigration sentiment from the Trump administration and linguistic profiling by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, learning a language is more important than ever.
“It has never been so critically important to learn a language,” Mroz said. “ICE agents are at our doors in Lincoln Square Mall, conducting linguistic profiling, targeting individuals for the language they speak. In this context, reducing language education undermines our stated commitments to equity and to protecting the most vulnerable members of our community.”
Mindy Fitzgerald, accountant for LAS, said in her speech that the online degree completion program would allow her to fulfill her dream of attending the University. She said the language requirement would deter her from enrolling.
“Even with the program’s launch, the current three semester language requirement would still prevent me from enrolling,” Fitzgerald said. “I completed two years of French in high school, but would have to start over at the beginner level.”
Jacob Pinholster, dean of the College of Fine and Applied Arts, also spoke in favor of the proposal. The Bachelor’s of Fine and Applied Arts, a new online degree approved by the Senate during Monday’s meeting, would start with the three-semester LOTE policy, but Pinholster said he would consider lowering the requirement in the future if the LOTE proposal passed.
“Within the arts, we know that language and culture are inseparable,” Pinholster said. “But we feel, in the long run, level two proficiency provides the cultural foundation our disciplines demand, while removing a barrier that our mission would discourage.”
Several other speakers delivered remarks, debating the proposal’s passage, before the motion ultimately failed. The three-level LOTE requirement will remain.
