The Gazette-Times of Corvallis reports that Oregon State University has joined the University of Southern California in phasing out a modern language department — Italian, this time. The University has announced that next fall there will be no entry-level classes in Italian, with all classes in the language being terminated by the fall of 2009.

The problem is ostensibly budgetary. The newspaper reports that the foreign languages and literatures department has run a projected deficit of a quarter of a million dollars this year. As a consequence, many sections of language instruction (including those in Spanish) will be canceled, while class sizes will grow. The university administration has indicated that two other languages and four language teaching positions may also be eliminated shortly, although no one knows which they may be.

The chief business officer for the college of liberal arts blames the university’s budgeting system for the decision to cut Italian, since budget allocations are not keyed to student demand for instruction. The University’s vice president for finance and administration is reported to have commented that “the university budget model is complicated, because there are expensive classes, such as science courses, and inexpensive courses, such as physical fitness classes.” That seems an invitation to us to compare Italian to physical fitness. He seems to have also commented that many departments had been able to succeed within the university’s business plan.

The irony here is, of course, that Italian is almost certainly not an “expensive department.” I do not know what the salary structure of the university is, but I would be willing to bet that Italian instructors are among the most poorly paid of OSU faculty. Modern language teachers are near the bottom of the food chain in most universities. Where do they stand in relation to phys-ed instructors? I don’t know, but I think it would be nice if the educational importance of fields of instruction was the primary criterion for making academic planning decisions.

The aforementioned business officer is also quoted as saying that the decision to terminate Italian is “ridiculous. It shouldn’t have to be this way. . . . There is a total disconnect (between) where the students want to take classes and where the budget is to support it.” Indeed. Of course decisions like the one at OSU are merely the tip of the iceberg of maladministration of curriculum at many public institutions, in which students are denied access to the very courses they need to fulfill requirements, including graduation requirements.

This is also an example of a growing and ongoing problem — the starving of arts and sciences in favor of more “useful” programs. And it is, manifestly, yet another willful attack on instruction in the humanities.