Quirky languages often taught by part-time profs

Part-time Swahili professor Leonora Kivuva said it would be her dream job to teach full time… Part-time Swahili professor Leonora Kivuva said it would be her dream job to teach full time at Pitt.

Kivuva has taught Swahili at Pitt for eight years. Last spring, she earned a Ph.D. from Pitt’s School of Education. She also teaches English as a second language in Pittsburgh public schools.

Kivuva is one of the many part-time professors at Pitt. As a part-time professor, she is not allowed to teach more than three classes per semester and is paid less per course than a full-time professor. She said she is not required to serve on committees or advise students.

Swahili is the official language of Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya – where Kivuva was born.

This semester she is teaching two sections of Swahili 1 and one section of Swahili 3. In the spring she will teach two sections of Swahili 2 and one section of Swahili 4.

Kivuva teaches in the Less Commonly Taught Languages Center (LCTL), a part of the linguistics department.

The most popular courses in the department are Arabic, American Sign Language, Irish Gaelic and Swahili, according to LCTL chairman Claude Mauk.

The center also offers courses in Hindi, modern Greek, Hungarian, Swedish, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Icelandic and two indigenous South American languages -Quechua and Aymara.

Next semester, LCTL will add a course in Xhosa, one of the official languages of South Africa, which uses consonant sounds made by clicking the tongue.

Of the languages taught in the center, only Arabic and ASL are taught by full-time professors because of the high demand for these two programs. The other 11 are taught by part-time professors who are generally native speakers of the language.

Mauk said when there is a high student interest in a language, his department searches for a full-time professor to coordinate the classes.

Mauk has seen a gradual increase in student demand for Arabic since the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. To meet the demand, Amani Attia, who taught Arabic part time last spring, became a full-time professor this year. As a full-time professor, Attia is teaching three Arabic sections this semester – the same amount that Kivuva is teaching.

Mauk said that some languages taught in LCTL are adopted by other departments when administrators feel their program could benefit from the addition. For example, Mauk explained that Korean classes became part of the East Asian Languages and Literatures department in 2002.

At that time Korean professor SungWha Oh moved from LCTL to East Asian Languages and Literatures.

Joseph Adjaye, a professor in the Africana Studies department of the School of Arts and Sciences, and director of the African Studies program offered through International Studies, said that in the 1970s Swahili was based in Africana Studies, but at some point the language was dropped.

“The easiest way that we could keep it alive was to have it offered as a less commonly taught language,” Adjaye said.

While Swahili is cross-listed in both Linguistics and Africana Studies so that students can receive credit from either department by taking Swahili, Adjaye feels that Africana Studies would benefit from bringing Swahili into the department.

“I think it would be an advantage to the department, particularly because of the close relationship between language and culture,” Adjaye said.

Cecil Blake, chairman of the Africana Studies department, said he does not see any reason to move Swahili back into Africana Studies, since students can still take it as part of an Africana Studies degree.

Kivuva said her department often has to close out Swahili classes for students and thinks more students would take Swahili if more sections were offered.

“Because of people’s schedules, the flexibility is less if there are less sessions,” Kivuva said. “So if there are more sessions then maybe [Swahili] would fit in more people’s schedules.”

John Cooper, dean of Arts and Sciences, said the University creates very few new faculty positions because of funding concerns.

“In order to create a new position we usually have to close another one,” Cooper said. “Most of the money used to fund new positions comes from tuition and the Commonwealth.”

“We’re very concerned not to increase tuition if we don’t have to,” Cooper added.

Cooper said for a full-time position to be created, a department would have to make the case that the material and its role in the curriculum demands a full time professor.

He said a full-time position typically requires a Ph.D. or a Master of Fine Arts degree, depending on the program. A candidate also must show evidence of quality in teaching, expertise in the discipline and evidence of creativity if research is required.

“Some people who teach part time would be fully qualified for a full-time position if we had one, some might not be,” Cooper said.

Mauk reinforced that the biggest con of creating a full time position for the University is the increase in salary. He said the biggest advantage is that the professor has more time to dedicate to improving the quality of the course.

Mauk said this year 41 out of 44 spots were filled for Swahili 1 when the add-drop period ended. Last fall and the fall before that, students filled only 27 and 29 spots, respectively.

“We might be seeing a little bit of growth now or it may be a fluctuation,” Mauk said.

“It’s a question of whether we’re going to see that as a continuing thing. We’ll just have to wait and see,” he added.