Uh oh... modern languages don't have a friend in Derek Bok...

Bok is decidely anti-language. Read on it's own, his chapter on "preparing for a global society" might not appear that way, but in contrast with what has come before, we finally arrive at something he doesn't think is worth promoting. I like the general drift of Bok's book- if you are serious about curriculum reform, then you don't just start and end with the aggregated preferences of a faculty committee. You should start and end with education research. What does the research say? Does the research support a proposed curricular innovation? Now the problem with this is that in many disciplines, the research is not definitive (Reagan's old wish for a one-handed economist comes to mind). Why would that be different in the discipline of education research? So, Bok presents studies suggesting that requiring foreign languages maybe need not be a priority. But after the diversity chapter debacle, now I no longer trust that he has properly sounded the research... I am quite sure there is more to learn.

What does Bok favor instead? A good course introducing students to the international world. Who can be opposed in principle -- though very hard to standardize across instructors. And, by the way, there seems to be no research-evidenced results presented by Bok indicating that something like that is more effective than language instruction.