The Free Press, Mankato, MN

Local News

March 18, 2006

Bill voices concern over professors’ accents

By Robb Murray

MANKATO — If a Freeport lawmaker has his way, professors who can’t speak plain, unaccented English in a college classroom may no longer be able to step foot in a classroom. At least not in Minnesota.

Republican Rep. Bud Heidgerken, a former teacher and cafe owner, has introduced a bill that would require college professors to prove English proficiency before being allowed to teach undergraduate classes.

“I’ve had many students say they dropped a course or delayed graduation for a semester because they couldn’t get around this one professor they couldn’t understand,” Heidgerken said. “All I’m trying to accomplish is getting the best education we have for post-secondary students.”

Most colleges and universities employ faculty who speak less than perfect English. A Minnesota State University administrator, however, says legislating language perfection may not be the best way to go about this.

“Some of our best teachers are teachers who aren’t native speakers of English,” said Scott Olson, MSU’s vice president for academic affairs. “If for some reason they are prevented from being faculty, the real losers are the students.”

Despite the fact North Dakota, Texas and Pennsylvania have laws dealing with the English proficiency of college teachers, Travis Reindl, director of state policy analysis with the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, finds the legislation troublesome.

“If we start sending a message here that if you can’t speak the king’s English flawlessly, we don’t want you in our classrooms, that sends a message that the U.S. is not a friendly place for them,” he said. “(Besides), there are parts of this country where you would swear that English is a second language based on your own background. If you took somebody from Minnesota and plunked him in Mississippi, then you might have a question.”

Josh Olson, an MSU business student, said he’s occasionally encountered a professor with a heavy foreign accent. But Olson says communication with the professor, in most cases, solves the problem.

He said talking to the instructor and getting him or her to provide a written version of lecture material usually works when the spoken-word version was difficult to understand.

“It is difficult sometimes clearly understanding the professor,” he said. “But we have a lot of international students, and for their sake, maybe it’s better for them.

Vice President Olson said there are other ways to gauge a professor’s effectiveness. Students typically complete evaluations on each instructor at the end of each term. The university, he said, pays very close attention to those.

He also said he’s never heard of there being any cases where faculty members who simply can’t speak the language are allowed to teach.



This report contains information from The Associated Press.

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