Department stays à la mode with change to new name

Acacia O'Connor Life Editor

What’s in a name? Or you might say “Qu’y a-t-il dans un nom?” A lot, say French language study programs.

French is now the official language of 29 countries and is spoken by roughly 300 million people. While the language was never static, scholars have more recently broadened their approaches to studying the words and the people who speak them in recent years to account for French’s continual evolution and expansion.

With this in mind, the French Department at Vassar has decided to change its name. The Department will now be known as the Department of French and Francophone Studies.

“The field of French studies has evolved significantly over the past few decades, and our name change reflects that,” said Department Chair Kathleen Hart in an e-mailed statement.

Hart said that “French” has a dual meaning, in that it is both a nationality and a language. The national aspect of the term minimizes the importance of French-speaking societies outside of France.

“‘Francophone’ refers to the complex linguistic, economic and political situation of countries and regions where French is not the only or original language,” she said.

The move follows a recent trend among liberal arts colleges to broaden the title to be more comprehensive and specific. Pennsylvania State University and the University of California, Los Angeles were among the first to make the change at the turn of the century. Hobart and William Smith, Swarthmore, Haverford, Bryn Mawr, Sarah Lawrence and Oberlin colleges all have French and Francophone Studies Departments. Wesleyan University has a French Studies program under its Department of Romance Languages and Literatures.