USC is eliminating the study of German as a major over the next three years and dismantling the department except for some basic language courses, officials said. Faculty and students are protesting the move, saying it will harm the university's national reputation for scholarship.
The German department at the Los Angeles campus is relatively small, with three full-time professors, three lecturers, 10 undergraduate majors and 10 minors, said its chairman, Gerhard Clausing. He said the university has starved the department of funds and new hires in recent years and is now making a serious mistake in reducing it further.
Clausing, who has taught at USC for 32 years, said he will retire this summer rather than be assigned to a department where he would feel like an outsider. He predicted USC will be criticized nationally as scholars notice "that this area is missing at USC."
Michael Quick, executive vice dean of USC's College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, described the move as mainly administrative. With the department's small size and the likelihood of faculty retirements, Quick said it could no longer function as a separate entity. Professors will be transferred to other departments, such as linguistics.
Students with a major or minor in German will be allowed to finish their programs, but no new ones will be added. German language classes will be offered "as long as there is demand," and Quick held out the possibility that a major might be reconstituted in the future. A doctoral program in German was cut about a decade ago. "I do think colleges and universities evolve," Quick said. "In some ways departments come and go over time as we think about what a college should do in the 21st century." For example, he said USC is now adding resources to its programs in Asian and Middle Eastern languages and cultures.
Howard Gillman, dean of the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, stressed that the change "does not mean that we don't respect the contributions of German culture and language." He noted that several other languages don't have their own departments, such as Japanese and Chinese, which are in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures.
Jennifer Appleby, a junior majoring in both German and comparative literature, said she was "appalled" by the university's decision.
"I know it's a small department. But having a German department is just standard in a university this large of this caliber," she said, citing German influence on European and American culture.
