Santa Barbara: Departments

Foreign Languages and Literatures
Courses in foreign languages were added to the curriculum of the Santa Barbara State Teachers College in 1921. The courses offered were: Beginning and Intermediate French, and Beginning, Intermediate, and Commercial Spanish. The following year, two courses in Spanish literature were added and the study of a foreign Ianguage made part of the requirement for the A.B. degree in certain areas. The offerings expanded slowly. In 1931, a minor in French and Spanish was introduced; a course in German was first offered in 1942; by 1943, the foreign language faculty had expanded to five members and two years later a major in Spanish was offered; a major in French was not offered until 1949. Latin was first taught in 1949; Russian in 1951 (but dropped until 1958); Italian in 1963; Chinese in 1962; Japanese in 1966.

In the fall of 1961, Spanish and Portuguese were organized as a separate department; by 1966, when foreign languages would move into a building which it would share with education, the department was to be further divided into a French and Italian department and a German and Russian department, with Chinese and Japanese remaining administratively with the latter. In addition, Hebrew, Arabic, and Swedish would be added under the aegis of the German and Russian department.

By the fall of 1961, the department was sufficiently developed to begin a program of graduate study; Spanish led the way, offering an M.A. degree at that time. The following year a master's degree in French was introduced; German was authorized to offer an M.A. in the spring of 1965. A Ph.D. program in French was introduced in 1965; a Ph.D. in German was planned to be offered in 1966.

The Education Abroad Program introduced at the University in 1962, had been of substantial benefit to the instruction in foreign languages. Study at centers like Bordeaux, Goettingen, Padua, and Madrid developed and improved rapidly. Since the enterprise was directed from the Santa Barbara campus, the foreign language departments on the campus were especially interested in integrating their programs with those offered at centers abroad.

In 1964-65, there were 66 graduate and 3,644 undergraduate students enrolled in the various languages. source