Italian Professor Alessandro Carrera was shocked when he counted the number of language graduates on the University of Houston’s commencement program in May.
Around 20 undergraduates earned degrees in Spanish, American Sign Language, Chinese or French, and another 10 students earned a degree in a broader world cultures major that includes the option of concentrating on a language. As a comparison, Carrera looked at psychology — one of UH’s most popular disciplines — and added up more than 550 names.
It was a stark reminder of the challenges facing the university’s language programs, despite their location in the center of one of the country’s most multicultural cities. The College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences has struggled to enroll undergraduate language majors to the extent that French and American Sign Language recently joined German and Italian on a list of bachelor’s that are no longer offered at UH…