The Italian department announced last week that it would cancel its Fall term LSA+ forcing all seven participants to alter their Dartmouth Plans. The program was canceled due to understaffing in the department and an Office of Off-Campus Programs rule stipulating a minimum number of eight students to hold a program.
"I had planned everything around being in Rome in the fall including classes, summer jobs and roommates, so it would be a hassle to change and move everything around. The whole situation was very frustrating and the timing was awful," Elsa Rodriguez '09 said. "There were only three days before room draw and there is only a month left of school to rework my plans."
The Office of Off-Campus Programs rule states that any off-campus program must be canceled when enrollment falls below eight students. Enrollment fell to seven just before the announced cancelation, according to John Tansey, director of the Office of Off-Campus Programs.
The Italian department also canceled the LSA+ partly because the small number of faculty in the Italian department led to professors teaching large numbers of classes each term.
"I am directing the spring LSA+ in Rome, but it proved too much for me to be 'on' four terms in a row, which I would have had to do if I had directed the LSA+ in the fall and the spring," Italian professor Keala Jewell said, who was scheduled to lead the program.
The Italian department is currently very short-staffed despite its popularity with students. It usually employs five tenured or tenure-track professors, but as of July 1 it will only have three professors, one of whom is chairing a program outside of the department, Italian professor Nancy Canepa said.
"This year it's a bit of an anomaly because we need to replace the medievalist we lost to Oxford, Professor Manuele Gragnolati," Jewell said. "Right now, we are in the process of hiring a new faculty member, who should be on board within a year."
The lack of professors has proven problematic as the department struggles to staff both on-campus Italian classes and off-campus programs.
Several students expressed frustration and dismay with the program's cancellation, especially given the emphasis Dartmouth places on study-abroad and language programs.
"How can a school that prides itself on its language departments just cancel a program like this?" Brian DeGrazia '08, who was scheduled to go on the LSA+, said. "After dealing with slim course offerings and standardized testing dates in high school I thought I'd be done with those sorts of difficulties at such a distinguished institution."
The department has offered a few alternative options to students affected by the cancelation, including attending the regular LSA offered Fall term or the LSA+ offered Spring term.
Rodriguez has decided to attend the LSA instead of the LSA+ during Fall term, but DeGrazia and Dana Silberstein '08 said they cannot attend the LSA+ offered in the spring.
"I've already taken three terms of Italian and I can't go on the program in the spring. If I had known in advance they were thinking of canceling the program I wouldn't have wasted a class on Italian 3," Silberstein said.
Silberstein also expressed frustration with the way the options were presented. Several students, including DeGrazia and Rodriguez, even considered going on another university's study-abroad program.
"Really, all the suggestions and the pushing are coming from the students, not the administrative end. I expected them to work harder to find us an alternative," Silberstein said.
Despite the controversy and the hassle of rearranging D-Plans, most students still expressed interest in studying in Rome.
"I was just really confused when I first found out my program was canceled because I had anticipated not being here in the fall, but I'm not really that upset because at least I get to go in the spring," Laura Richardson '09 said.
The department will still run three of its four scheduled programs next year, including a Fall and Winter term LSA and a Spring term LSA+.
