By Elena Rowe//
The French, German and Spanish language houses will relocate to the new residence hall in the fall semester.
The French house opened after WWII in 1946 and the Spanish house opened in 1950. All three language houses were located in the duplexes at the intersection of Fairview Avenue and West Seventh Street.
According to the Hood College website, students who occupy the language houses have to be enrolled in a language class or be above the intermediate level of the language.
Each house has a language assistant selected by the language department. The assistants are native speakers and are philology (the study of language in oral and written historical context) graduates who come from their home country to help the students living in the house become fluent.
“This housing has been a major feature of Hood and we have tried to always advertise it because not many institutions have this option,” Griselda Zuffi, chair of the Department of Global Languages and Cultures, said.
The conversation about the students relocating to the new residence hall occurred four years ago among Provost Deborah Ricker, the previous director of the Honors Program, French professor Didier Course and Zuffi.
“At that time, we were not 100% sure if this would happen, but since the residence hall opened this school year, the administration offered this opening to the language house students to live in, per another meeting this past January,” Course said.
Ricker said that the purpose of the language houses was to be both a living and learning community.
“It is not exclusive to a specific house or living space,” Ricker said. “It’s a common model used at many institutions and is considered a high-impact educational practice. The hallmark features of a successful living and learning community include providing opportunities to integrate classroom knowledge in an applied residential setting, and to learn from one another.”
Ricker said that on most campuses, living and learning communities are located within residence halls, which is what Hood is adopting in the fall.
“By reserving distinct residential spaces for students and teaching assistants in the languages, and by using that shared residential setting to support programs specific to each language, we can successfully fulfill the goals of the language houses in a new space,” Ricker said.
The language assistant will still live in the space with the students to help ensure an immersive language and cultural experience, Ricker said.
Hood has been using the former language houses to quarantine students exposed to COVID-19 this year.
Now, with the language house program relocating, Hood has yet to decide whether to renew the lease for the Seventh Street duplexes, according to Vice President of Finance and Treasurer Chuck Mann. Mann said that Hood is waiting to see if the duplexes will be needed based on residential enrollment numbers for the fall.
Students interested in living in the language community within the new residence hall, must apply by April 22. Questions should be directed to Griselda Zuffi at gzuffi@hood.edu or Didier Course at dcourse@hood.edu.
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