Japanese program developments

Remember back at the beginning of last semester, when I said I would make this blog a clearing house for announcements about Japanese events. Ah, how young and naive I was then. Anyway, there are a lot of events coming up this year, but I think the key to keeping up on things is to make all the entries short and targeted. So this one will be about developments in the Japanese program.

As I've written before, the expansion of the Japanese program is happening even faster than I'd hoped, and enrollments seem to be rising to fill whatever classes we offer. As you know, we're offering JPN 101 in the winter for the first time this semester, and enrollments are at 26 students! That's huge for a first time! We have also put a JPN 101-102 sequence on the books for the spring and summer semesters for the first time. Of course, those classes are dependent on getting sufficient enrollment, and I hear that courses like that almost never run the first couple of years they are offered. Still, I am hopeful.

And now for next year... With 101 being offered in the winter, we're going to follow up so that students can take all of the first three semesters in "off" semester rather than adhering to the straight fall-winter-fall-winter progression. That means teaching 102 next fall and both 101 and 201 next winter. Abe sensei will be teaching a course in Japanese linguistics in the fall, and I will be teaching the next course in the Japanese culture and civilization sequence in the winter. And the third-year Japanese language sequence has been officially approved, so that will be on the books next year as well. Here's how next year looks:

Fall 2010
JPN 101 (three sections)
JPN 102 (one section)
JPN 201 (two sections)
JPN 301 (one section)
JPN 380 (linguistics)

Winter 2011
JPN 101 (one section)
JPN 102 (three sections)
JPN 201 (one section)
JPN 202 (one section)
JPN 302 (one section)
JPN/EAS 380 (early modern Japanese culture and civilization)

That adds up to eight courses per semester, which means that in addition to myself and Abe sensei, we will also need an adjunct instructor to teach two courses per semester. And, as long as enrollments hold, it brings us one step closer to justifying a third full-time hire. In other words, by the end of that year I'm hoping that we will have justified requesting both a second tenure-track faculty member and a full-time visitor for the following year (2012-13). In my mind, that's when we can really start thinking seriously about a Japanese minor. I know it feels like a long road to get there, but I'm actually pretty happy with the speed at which things are falling into place. These things take a lot of time, and I'm excited that the demand is driving things forward so well.