Author: Kyla Nies

On Thursday, October 25th, Dr. Peter Meilaender delivered his faculty lecture entitled “Why You Should Learn a Foreign Language: Confessions of a Homebody Traveller.” Faculty Lectures are a long standing tradition at Houghton in which Professors from all departments are invited present their current work in their field of study or simply on a topic which they are passionate about. Speakers in the past have presented on everything from Michelangelo to Antibiotics to the role of Organists in Worship. For his presentation, Dr. Meilaender gave his argument for why students ought to learn at least one or two foreign languages.

Dr. Meilaender opened by explaining that in the past decade, enrollment in all foreign languages at the University level has declined to its lowest level since the 1960s. This phenomenon is evidenced on our very own campus by the merging of the foreign language department with Intercultural Studies and the decline in foreign language courses offered. At this point French, German, Hebrew, and Greek are offered on rotating schedules at beginner levels, compared to even just two decades ago when Houghton offered more foreign language classes at various levels and multiple foreign language majors and minors.

This decline in enrollment might suggest that there is no longer value in studying foreign languages. Dr. Meilaender argued that this is not the case. Learning foreign languages is important for University students because, in the words of Austrian Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, “the limits of my language means the limits of my world.” When we are only fluent in our own language, our world is limited to our own country and culture. Dr. Meilaender anecdotally explained his own experience of this phenomenon, as student who originally had no interest in other countries or cultures, but who learned German upon meeting the woman who is now his wife and discovering the positives of German culture and engineering.  Today, Dr. Meilaender reaps the many benefits of being able to fully engage both American and German culture, which would be impossible if not for his fluency in German. Students can do the same because language is a prerequisite for learning about a culture.

Not only is “learning a foreign language an admission pass to another cultural universe” but it is one of the bests way to understand English grammar, is practical in jobs, and translation increases one’s facility for the use of language. With these reasons in mind, Dr. Meilaender proposes a vision in which each student is fluent in at least one language, preferably two (one modern language and one classical language.) This vision is not totally unrealistic considering the many tools at students disposal like Duolingo and Babbel, which offer quick language acquisition options or self-designed minors which provide an option for students desiring more academic fluency.

Dr. Meilaender concluded with the argument that learning a language can also be considered deeply Christian. According to the Bible there will be a day where people from every nation, tongue, and tribe will gather before the throne of God and worship him together. This means that in heaven we might all be able to understand one another “but,” to use Dr. Meilaender’s concluding words  “there is no reason that we should not get a head start now.”

The lecture was received well by students and faculty. Many students, like Junior Emily Allen, attend and “appreciated Dr. Meilaender’s lecture and his whimsical approach to the serious topic of the life-changing effects of learning a foreign language.” Similarly, Dr. Sarah Derck, a foreign language professor herself, thought “Dr. Meilaender’s lecture today was winsome and insightful” and she “particularly appreciated the connections he drew between learning a foreign language and entering that culture.” The next lecture will be by Dr. Anna Pettway on November 15th at 4:25, entitled “#Existingwhileblack: The Psychological Burden of Anti-Black Racism.”

What does it mean to “use your heartbeats well”? This was the question posed to a group of Houghton Students as they sat under a thatch roof, watching the vervet monkeys play in the trees, on a cloudless morning. Though they sat in front of a stereotypical chalkboard, with their pens and papers before them, this was anything but a normal spring semester.

For the past 17 years, Houghton (and other partnering colleges) have been sending groups of 20-25 students to Masumbo- a rural campus just outside of the city of Iringa, Tanzania- to study development, anthropology and biology in an intercultural and hands-on setting. It is a program focused on experiential learning, in which everything that is learned in the classroom is immediately applied in an authentic context. For example, students would learn about the flora and fauna of an ecosystem in the classroom, and then go experience the land for themselves on safari – or debate sustainable development strategies, and then visit the places in which these strategies are being carried out.

The climax of the trip was a homestay, during which students were sent out to live with Tanzanian villagers for eight days; working when they worked, eating what they ate, and worshiping where they worshiped. It was a culminating experience, which challenged students to join their classroom knowledge of culture, history and language with the everyday experience of rural Tanzanians. “Homestay is one of the things that blares in my mind when I think about Africa… it helped me begin to learn some of the cultural nuances and some of the things that you can’t really see on the surface” said senior Alana Meyers. In addition to homestay, students got to engage with East African culture by visiting the Maasai people, watching Wahehe dancers, experiencing Tanzanian cuisine at places like the iconic “Hasty Tasty”, playing lots of football (soccer) and enjoying the landscape that sustains such an abundance of life.

When not out exploring, students called the Masumbo campus home. It’s a spacious field shaded by huge umbrella acacia trees and complete with an open air picnic hut, the “Twiga”-where students had class, and tiny “bandas” (huts) where students lived in pairs. The Ruaha river flows close by and students spent their afternoons lounging by the rapids or soaring over the river on the zipline. Senior Maggie Clune offered this vivid description: “My place had turned into a muddy brown river with rocks lining the paths. It had Bandas running along the treeline and a giant thatch roof classroom with couches perfect for napping. My place was suddenly a little hut, filled with art, that monkeys jumped on the roof of to wake me up in the morning. It was where chipates [an African version of a tortilla] quickly turned into a campus favorite and our professors became our best friends. I had my home, I had Houghton, and now I had Tanzania…… Masumbo created a safe place for me to sit and think about but what the future will hold for me. It gave quietness and peace to work through the changes that would be made when I got home.”

The semester in Tanzania program is designed to grow students in more than just an academic sense. Students attended chapels focusing the connection between God, ourselves, and the earth and wrestled with what it means to experience life together in a small close-knit community. In the words of Hannah Sievers, the semester “immensely altered my view of people, nature and God.”