Jeffrey Zamostny (Kansas State University)
jzam@****.com (Log-in to reveal)

This roundtable asks current, veteran, and prospective leaders of language programs to reflect on strategies and pitfalls for leadership at a time full of challenges and opportunities for language departments and language programs embedded within other units. How do program leaders advocate with deans, provosts, and other upper administrators? How do they lead faculty, staff, and students with divergent needs and interests? The panel invites an array of perspectives from department chairs/heads, program coordinators, directors, and other leaders from diverse institutional contexts.

Inspired by the conference theme “Our Ruling Classes,” this roundtable invites current, past, and potential future leaders of language programs to reflect on leadership strategies and pitfalls in the current moment. Department chairs/heads, program coordinators, directors, and the like are hardly “rulers,” but they do play leadership roles that, to quote the PAMLA conference description, are essential for “adjudicating internal conflicts, inspiring collective action, and representing the community to the outside world”--in this case, to upper administrators, other departments and units, students, and communities beyond the academy.

Proposals are sought for presentations of five to ten minutes from leaders of language departments, language programs, or other relevant units at an array of institutions, including 2- and 4-year colleges and universities with diverse missions, student populations, and regional contexts. Topics may include but are not limited to:

· Advocating for languages in- and outside the academy

· Balancing needs and interests of different languages and programs (e.g., commonly and less commonly taught languages, undergraduate and graduate programs)

· Supporting faculty teaching, research, and service commitments

· Cultivating future language program leaders

· Recruiting, retaining, and graduating students

· Managing time and resources

· Establishing partnerships on campus and beyond

· Maintaining, restoring or strengthening language requirements

The roundtable welcomes participation from individuals who have experienced and/or combatted program closures, mergers, and restructurings as well as change that has facilitated growth.