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Reviving Dutch Studies: How North American Universities Are Reversing Declining Enrollments

Across North America, Dutch Studies programs are navigating turbulent waters. From Berkeley to Toronto, declining enrollments and shifting societal interests have forced these programs to rethink their strategies. What will it take to secure their future? Experts sought answers during a roundtable discussion at the conference of the Canadian Association for the Advancement of Netherlandic Studies (CAANS) at McGill University in Montreal.

Before turning to the round table discussion at McGill University, it may be important to briefly describe the Dutch Studies Programs represented by the panelists in this article. They are, in fact, quite varied, and range from fully developed majors and structured minors to limited core offerings in Dutch language training.

The Dutch Studies Program at the University of California, Berkeley, is by far the most robust. It is unique in that it offers both undergraduate and graduate programming. Students can major or minor in Dutch Studies, and graduate students can pursue a Designated Emphasis in Dutch Studies. Courses focus on Dutch language training, for absolute beginners to advanced learners, and on the culture, literature, linguistics, and history of the Netherlandic world, past and present, from the Low Countries to the Dutch Caribbean, Suriname, and the former Dutch East Indies (Indonesia).

In the American Midwest the University of Michigan, situated in Ann Arbor, offers a newly designed minor with a resolutely decolonial approach. The new program distances itself from the traditional Eurocentric curriculum in Dutch Studies, favouring instead a diverse representation of the post-colonial Dutch linguistic landscape. The minor contains an innovative Surinamese Dutch language curriculum, developed by Dr. Denice Gravenstijn, as well as culture courses taught in English, which draw attention to the impact of Dutch colonialism on the languages and cultures of the colonized.

The remaining Dutch Studies Programs in the United States tend to be composed of a set of core Dutch language training courses. Columbia University offers a six-semester language sequence as part of its program of studies in Dutch language and the Dutch-speaking world, while Stanford University offers beginners, intermediate, and advanced Dutch language courses through the Special Language Program (SLP), which provides Stanford students with the opportunity to study a Less Commonly Taught Language (LCTL). Calvin University reduced its offerings from a major and minor in Dutch language and culture to a set of core language requirements in 2021, despite its location in Holland, Michigan, an area settled by Dutch Calvinist immigrants in the mid-1800s, and which continues to take great pride in its Dutch protestant heritage.

As for the two Canadian universities that were represented at the round table discussion at McGill University, they have limited core offerings. The University of Waterloo in Southwestern Ontario offers a Diploma in Dutch language, composed of four courses, two of which need to be completed, however, at another institution, as only Dutch 101 – Elementary Dutch 1 and Dutch 102 – Elementary Dutch 2 are available on a regular basis. Waterloo students can take the missing intermediate courses at the University of Toronto, also in Ontario. That university offers, through its School of Continuing Studies, a series of four online Dutch language training courses, allowing students to reach level A2 in the grid used by the Council of Europe’s Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). Students who complete the four consecutive courses are eligible for a Certificate in Conversational Dutch.

The faculty complement of all the North American Dutch Studies Programs is rather small in comparison to that of other language programs, such as Hispanic Studies (in the United States) or French Studies (in Canada), though it is often comparable to that of other ‘smaller’ languages taught at North-American post-secondary institutions, such as German or Italian Studies (in Canada) or Scandinavian Studies (in the United States).

The Dutch Studies Program at the University of California, Berkeley has the largest faculty complement, with two tenured research faculty (though both are cross-appointed with the Department of German) and one lecturer. The University of Michigan’s Minor in Dutch Language and Culture has two lecturers, while Stanford University has one lecturer shared with the University of California, Berkeley. Columbia University has one lecturer and one adjunct lecturer for its Dutch-language training courses. Columbia, moreover, annually hosts a visiting Queen Wilhelmina professor (from Utrecht University or KU Leuven, on a rotating basis), sponsored by the Queen Wilhelmina Foundation, who teaches one semester a year on a topic related to the history, culture, or language of the Dutch-speaking world. Calvin University retains one tenured research faculty member, also shared with German. The University of Waterloo, in Canada, employs one sessional instructor (or contract faculty), and so does the School of Continuing Studies at the University of Toronto.

Fewer students are enrolling

The round table on the campus of McGill University in Montreal was moderated by Karlijn Waterman, Senior Policy Advisor Dutch as a Foreign Language at Nederlandse Taalunie (Dutch Language Union), and Tanja Collet, CAANS president and Associate Professor of Linguistics (University of Windsor, Canada). The participants were members of Dutch Studies Programs at American and Canadian universities: Wijnie de Groot (Columbia University, USA), Margreet de Rooij (University of Waterloo, Canada), Herman de Vries (Calvin University, USA), Annemarie Toebosch (University of Michigan, USA), Esmee van der Hoeven (University of California, Berkeley, and Stanford University, USA), and Marianne Verheyen (University of Toronto, Canada). Anna Lynn Dolman, a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, gave voice to the student perspective.

The panelists were given the following set of questions, drafted by Karlijn Waterman:

• What do you see as the key challenge(s) for Dutch Studies Programs in North America?
• What do you see as the main opportunity(s) and/or solutions for these challenges?
• And as a follow-up question, what is needed to realize those solutions, what can you yourselves, AANS (American Association for Netherlandic Studies) / CAANS / Nederlandse Taalunie or other institutions do to contribute to that?
• What concrete steps do we need to take?

It should come as no surprise that the panelists unanimously agreed that the main challenge facing Dutch Studies Programs today is low or decreasing student enrollment.

If one wishes to quantify the number of students registered in Dutch Studies, the distinction between major (a fully-fledged degree), minor (a set of limited courses that students can choose to add to a major), and service language courses (that are not part of a major or a minor but that a student may take to satisfy a language or breadth requirement) is important.

North American universities effectively only keep track of the number of students in majors (and not in minors or service courses). However, in Dutch Studies in North America, only Berkeley still has a major in Dutch Studies, with enrollment in the single digits, about 5 students. This probably means the following: the program may no longer be financially viable, as the tuition paid by these 5 students cannot cover the costs associated with offering the program (particularly, the salaries of 2 full-time senior research faculty and one lecturer). The other major at Calvin was cut because enrollment had dropped by 100% to 0 majors.

North American universities do not consider minors to be fully fledged programs. One cannot apply to a minor from high school. A minor is simply a set of courses that students can add to their degree – they usually use their breadth requirements to do so (majors are composed 50% of courses in the area of the major, and 50% of breadth requirements). Students can add 2 to 3 minors to their major, but may only declare their minor(s) a few weeks before graduation (which is often the case at Canadian institutions). Hence, institutions usually do not keep statistics on minors. The departments, however, may keep a watchful eye on enrollment in the courses making up the minor to gauge student interest. Annemarie Toebosch (University of Michigan) speaks of ‘increased enrollment.’ In fact, minors often have healthy enrollment while the corresponding majors do not, signaling that students remain interested in the area but no longer see it as a marketable stand-alone major, i.e., a degree linked to a clear need on the North American job market.

Service courses are a step below minors. These are courses that are not in a structured set. They are simply courses that any student can take to satisfy a language or breadth requirement. Students taking these courses cannot be said to be in a Dutch Studies Program. These courses are generally allowed to run if enrollment reaches the minimum number of students needed, which can vary from institution to institution. It is 10 at Michigan, but 20 at Windsor, for instance.

So, sadly, only 1 university offers a university degree in Dutch Studies, and the numbers there are unfortunately very low: 5 (some of these may be Combined Honours, in which case they would be counted as ½ of a student towards Dutch Studies). However, for a variety of reasons, students are willing to take Dutch language and culture as service courses (either to create a minor, but more likely to take one or two introductory courses) out of interest or simply because it fits in their schedule and they need to satisfy a language requirement. Enrollment in individual service courses demonstrates that fact (see, for instance, the enrollment numbers in individual courses at Berkeley and Toronto). Those who take the courses out of interest may have a link to the Netherlandic world through emigration, marriage, work, travel, future graduate studies, etc., or may be in a program, like art history, or linguistics, that requires an appreciation of some aspects of the Dutch language and culture.

New challenges, new initiatives

Decreasing student enrollment is not unique to Dutch Studies, but a trend plaguing all foreign language programs in North America. It can be blamed on society’s current predilection for STEM-related degree programs, which are perceived as more prestigious and a gateway to higher-paid professions. Other contributing factors may be the status of Dutch as a relatively ‘small’ language (in terms of its total number of speakers worldwide), the high levels of linguistic assimilation and the low levels of renewal of the Dutch and Flemish immigrant/expat communities in North America, and the gradual move away from Eurocentric curricula at North American universities.

In Canada, for instance, enrollment is consistently higher in Spanish and Arabic, growing immigrant languages from Latin America and the Middle East, while student interest in the heritage languages of ‘older’ immigrant communities, such as Italian and German, is fast declining. Incidentally, the use of English as a language of instruction at Dutch universities can also act as a deterrent and dissuade students, planning to pursue graduate studies in the Netherlands, from registering in Dutch language courses before their departure.

It is feared that programmatic changes currently being debated at American universities may worsen the enrollment problem. Changes that aim to remove the foreign language requirement, or alternately to lower the number of breath requirements students must take, will most likely have a detrimental effect on enrollment. So will enrollment requirements enforced by American and Canadian university administrators, that authorize the cancellation of courses that did not meet the minimum enrollment requirement of, for instance, 20 students by the beginning of the semester. Service courses offered by contractual faculty, such as lecturers and instructors, are particularly vulnerable to this policy.

The Dutch Studies Programs represented by the panelists have responded in various ways to these challenges. Columbia University offers its Dutch language courses through the Shared Course Initiative, in conjunction with Yale and Cornell University. This unique and innovative initiative connects language classrooms at Columbia, Cornell, and Yale via high-definition videoconferencing. The joint initiative facilitates the offering of a broad spectrum of Less Commonly Taught Languages, ranging from European languages such as Dutch, Finnish, and Hungarian, to African and Asian languages, such as Wolof and Indonesian and Khmer. This unique collaboration allows the three Ivy League research universities to pool resources by sharing courses and instructors, and to guarantee sufficient enrollment by tapping into the student bodies of three large institutions.

At least two institutions have chosen to revise the curricula of their Dutch Studies Programs to attract more students. The University of Michigan, another highly ranked research university, is a case in point. Panelist Annemarie Toebosch who revised Dutch Studies at Michigan explains: ‘Where traditional language programs are structured to promote a language-to-culture path (students enter elementary language courses, and if interested become majors or minors, working toward upper-level topics courses on particular culture topics), the Minor in Dutch Language and Culture creates an opportunity for students in our English-taught culture courses in decoloniality to become interested in Dutch in all its diversity. This culture-to-language path attracts a diverse pool of students and is protective of language studies in a time when language programs are threatened around the country.’

Herman de Vries at Calvin University uses a similar ‘culture-to-language path’. A new summer course, co-designed with colleagues from the Biology Department and Engineering, introduces STEM students, but also Arts and Social Science students, to Dutch sustainability innovations in the areas of land reclamation, water management, energy production, food production, and environmental preservation. Complete with field excursions in the Netherlands, and a catchy title, Dutch Sustainability: Is Orange the New Green, the course is expected to generate renewed interest in Dutch Studies.

While North American Dutch Studies Associations, such as AANS and CAANS, provide opportunities for their members to disseminate information and discuss common problems, the panelists generally agreed that these not-for-profit scholarly associations are not well placed to address the structural and enrollment challenges at North American institutions. It was suggested that their role involves raising awareness of these challenges and offering members a forum to discuss new strategies and pedagogical approaches but that their involvement cannot easily extend beyond that primary mission.

Experiential learning and a language course in Europe

The panelists also suggested that more incentives are needed to attract students to Dutch Studies and expressed the hope that the Taalunie, as well as Dutch and Belgian universities, would be able to help in that regard. Two types of incentives were identified by the panelists, one focused on experiential learning and the other on the achievement of higher levels of language proficiency through study-abroad initiatives.

Panelists felt that the availability of co-op placements for their students with Dutch or Flemish companies, either in North America or in Europe, would go a long way in countering the prevailing narrative that language studies do not lead to rewarding and well-paid careers. North American universities value experiential learning, and most have an office of cooperative education and workplace partnerships. While co-op placements were traditionally reserved for STEM and Business students, many North American undergraduate programs in the arts and humanities now also partner with businesses and community organizations to provide similar experiential learning opportunities to their students.

Panelists emphasized, furthermore, the need for a university-level summer language program for which students can obtain transfer credit at their home institutions in the United States or Canada. Panelists concurred that the two-week-long Taalunie Zomercursus Nederlands is a good start but added that North American students of Dutch often do not have the required level of proficiency to participate in the course. An intensive language program for absolute or advanced beginners is also needed. It was felt that the Taalunie Zomercursus Nederlands is geared more towards the needs of students majoring in Dutch Studies at their home institutions but that it is not well suited for students who study Dutch to satisfy a language requirement while majoring in a different area, which is the dominant profile of North American learners of Dutch.

Panelists referred to the intensive French as a Foreign Language summer courses at French and Canadian universities as a possible model. These courses combine active teaching and cultural activities and aim to develop oral and written French expression and comprehension skills, at all levels of proficiency (from beginner to advanced), often over a period of up to 3 months.

Finally, the student panelist emphasized the importance of providing students with a sense of community through cultural activities, such as a pannekoekenavond (pancake night), or weekly conversation circles. The sense of belonging created by these activities was felt to be crucial for student retention.

Despite the many challenges evoked in this piece, Dutch Studies continues to be part of the North American academic landscape, as well as of the rich tapestry of languages, literatures, and cultures found in Canada and the United States.

• CAANS
• Dutch Studies