Interim Provost Gerry Bradley addressed the faculty senate with information on student enrollment and departmental budgets. Data collected through last fall semester revealed student enrollment was under projection for both undergraduate and professional students. For this reason, the university entered the spring 2022 semester with roughly $4 million less than anticipated. Although a similar budgetary loss was anticipated for this spring term, strong enrollment and retention rates mitigated this effect, leaving the spring semester budget at a deficit of $1.5 million.

“All in all, we were down about $5.5 million dollars. The budget teams, especially in the units that have been impacted by lower enrollment than expected, have carried a lot of weight trying to work through that. We also made adjustments centrally and allocated discretionary funds to support those units,” Bradley said. “Overall, we are confident we can go forward, finish out the budget year and break even as we do every year.”

Bradley attributed this confidence to an overall increase in first-year student applications and admits for next academic year. All budgets for the next academic year are currently being developed, and increases to employee pay have been identified as an institutional priority.

“As we are developing our budgets now, we certainly want to build in things we know are important. We need to build in a pay increase, and we are committed to that. That is certainly critical for us to recruit and retain our faculty and staff here in this institution, who we know have gone through a trying two years with COVID-19,” Bradley said.

Faculty members Lauren Freeman and Avery Kolers presented senators with the proposal for a new academic program, the . The proposal moved for transition of the current master of arts in interdisciplinary studies-health care ethics, which is housed in graduate school, to the department of philosophy under the rubric of applied philosophy. The 33-credit hour program offered through the College of Arts and Sciences was proposed for implementation during the fall 2022 semester. Senators unanimously approved the proposed academic program.

Committee reports and a of the meeting can be accessed on the . The next Faculty Senate meeting is scheduled for April 6 via a hybrid format with the option of remote attendance via Teams, or in-person attendance at Ekstrom Library’s Chao Auditorium.

President Bendapudi and Dan Durbin, chief financial officer, provided senators with an overview of the . The budget was approved by the Board of Trustees on June 24, 2021.

Highlights of the budget included the return of employer retirement contribution to pre-Covid levels and an additional $3 million in endowment funding for the university. Durbin reported that for the second consecutive year, no increases were made to employee health insurance premiums or to employee parking permit fees.

Senators were informed about three proposed program closures. The Academic Programs committee recommended the closure of the master of arts in French, language and literature and the graduate certificate in translation and interpreting, as well the joint executive master in business administration degree previously offered in conjunction with the University of Kentucky’s Gatton College of Business and Economics. All three proposed program closures were approved and will go into effect on Aug. 1 of this year.

Two new academic program proposals were also presented to the Faculty Senate. The proposed programs include a bachelor of science in general studies through the College of Arts and Sciences and a master of science in health professions education through the College of ����ֱ�� and Human Development. The suggested implementation for the bachelor of science in general studies is the fall semester of 2022 and the master of science in health professions education is suggested to start for the spring semester of 2022. Both programs received approval from the senate.

Committee reports can be accessed on the . Due to technical difficulties, a video of the full meeting is not available, but a recorded portion of the meeting can be found .

The Faculty Senate does not meet in the month of August; the next Faculty Senate meeting is scheduled for September 1 via a hybrid format with the option of remote attendance via Teams, or in-person attendance at Ekstrom Library’s Chao Auditorium.

Compare that to the number of people studying Mandarin – roughly 30 million worldwide – and it is clear there is a gap to fill. Fortunately for UofL students, there is now that opportunity through the College of Arts & Sciences Classical & Modern Language Department’s Chinese Language minor program.

The program began accepting students for the first time in the fall. 

“One of the main reasons I came to UofL is that I am able to continue to learn Chinese,” said senior Kendall Malone, a Psychological & Brian Sciences major who is also enrolled in the minor program. “I plan on moving to China and bridging my psychology knowledge with my knowledge of Chinese language and culture to work addressing mental health issues there.”

The new language minor took the place of the department’s Chinese Studies minor, focused more on culture and history than language, which was transferred to the Asian Studies program. Now students can immerse themselves in a language-focused curriculum with two full-time faculty members devoted to developing and sustaining the program.

“Our undergraduates are well aware of the importance of the Chinese language — in addition to Chinese history and culture — in today’s globalized economy and diverse environment, and they welcome more opportunities to study it,” said Chinese language professor Li Zeng, director of the new minor program. “We are answering this increased demand by offering a recognized minor rather than just the occasional individualized offerings themselves.”

The Chinese Language minor provides learners of Mandarin Chinese with a standards-based, topically organized curriculum. The program promotes effective communication in Chinese, understanding of the Chinese civilization, and appreciation of global cultural diversity. Through full-fledged coursework from elementary to advanced levels, co-curricular activities, and a summer study abroad trip to China, this program complements majors as diverse as Business, Political Science, Humanities, Engineering, Geography, Medicine and History, among others. The program also opens up an array of scholarship opportunities through partnerships with U.S. government agencies, Chinese institutions, non-profit organizations and businesses.

“Apart from providing educational services for students’ language proficiency to make them better suited to today’s globalized world, this language-focused Chinese minor program also helps increase students’ success in receiving major grants like the Boren and Fulbright Awards, as well as university scholarships,” Prof. Zeng said.

For example, Chinese Studies minor and Speed School of Engineering alumnus Ben Arterburn (’08) received the prestigious Boren Award to pursue studies in China while an undergraduate at UofL. He went on to get an MA in Modern and Contemporary China from Columbia University and now works as a Foreign Service Officer for the U.S. State Department. Chinese Studies minor and College of Business alumnus Will Scott (’09) was one of only 15 people worldwide accepted into the MA program in Modern Chinese Studies at the University of Oxford in 2009. And senior Calvin Grant, double majoring in Asian Studies and Geography and minoring in Chinese Language, received the World Scholars Scholarship to study Chinese in Beijing before returning to UofL to finish his undergraduate degree, intern at The Crane House and complete his senior thesis.

Even students like Kevin Zheng, who has speaks Mandarin at home with his parents, find formal instruction in the language important for future success.

“I did not learn Chinese in a school environment, which left me with a shaky foundation and not much room to improve,” said Zheng, a Chinese Language minor and Bioengineering major at the Speed School. “Learning it at an academic level helps me use language to understand interactions between people in other cultures, and it can assist me in getting a job in the future as it shows that I am capable and reliable to work with matters that require knowing Chinese.”

Since the establishment of the Chinese Language minor last semester, the program has accepted six students, is processing six more applications, and is continually fielding calls and emails from prospective students. Nationwide, the number of university students studying Chinese has tripled in recent years, according to the Modern Language Association.