After 20 years of offering the French certificate program to only business students, University of Wisconsin is making a new 15-credit certificate available to all undergraduates regardless of major.
Ritt Deitz, the executive director of the Professional French Masters Program, said the new certificate came about as the result of surveying students. The French department decided to make the certificate open to all students after receiving feedback from many who said they want to continue to study French, but are unable to complete the major.
“We were getting anecdotal interest on a regular basis from our students and some grousing about the fact that only business students could do something like a certificate,” Deitz said.
Previously, the only certificate available was reserved for students in the School of Business, a program that began about 20 years ago through collaboration between the two departments. Undergraduate Advisor and Senior Lecturer Andrew Irving said the previous certificate was not designed to exclude anyone, but was rather the consequence of budget cuts.
Irving said the department worked closely with the Business School to ensure the new certificate fulfills the needs of their students.
“This new certificate is going to also satisfy their same desires in terms of the students being able to have more language training and more international exposure to their learning,” Irving said. “It will add more cultural competency to their learning as well.”
The certificate consists of five courses and 15 credits, one less credit than the old certificate for business students. The requirements are no longer cross-listed with International Business, as was done previously. Students now are required to take two core classes, one advanced and two electives.
Deitz said the certificate is aimed to complement any major.
“There are so many students that have manifested an interest in French in their careers after school […], usually as a way of complimenting their current major because increasingly students are more pragmatic and are much more skills-based and skills-oriented,” he said. “French is a skill that can serve them professionally after they graduate college.”
Earlier this year, Forbes released a report predicting that French would be the most spoken language by 2050.
Deitz said the rapid growth of the language shows just how useful being proficient in French can be.
“Students who study French go on to work in international development, international business, finance, marketing, market research, emergency preparedness training and humanitarian consulting. They do all kinds of work with their French because it’s so spoken around the planet,” he said.
According to Deitz, the department was able to go through with implementing the certificate once students showed they really wanted it.
Deitz said he credits the university for the support the department received in creating the certificate, adding that UW can act to innovate interested departments fairly quickly. They received support all the way to the top because of the interest from students, Deitz said.
“There’s something very Wisconsin about starting with students,” Deitz said. “That’s what we’re built on. All those things come from a culture here that allows us to try new things.”
