UW-Milwaukee: L&S: Faculty Document No. 730

College of Letters and Science Faculty Document No. 730
December 15, 2005

Recommendation of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and the L&S Academic Program and Curriculum Committee to Grant the Request for Authorization to Implement a Master of Arts in Spanish

Recommendation:

That the L&S Faculty recommend to the Dean approval of the request for authorization to implement a Master of Arts in Spanish, as outlined below.

Rationale:

See below, especially sections 2 and 3.

* * * * * * *

Request for Authorization to Implement a Master of Arts in Spanish

I. PROGRAM IDENTIFICATION

1.1	Title of Proposed Program: Master of Arts in Spanish
1.2	Department: Department of Spanish and Portuguese
1.3	College: College of Letters and Science, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
1.4	Timetable for Initiation: Academic Year 2006-2007, Semester 1

II. CONTEXT

2.1	History of Program: The Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee had its own Master of Arts in Spanish program during the 1960's and early 1970's. This program was absorbed by the Master of Arts in Foreign Languages and Literature (MAFLL) program when it was created in July of 1974. A request for an entitlement to plan a new M.A. in Spanish was approved in April 1998, as stated in a memorandum from David J. Ward, Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs to Kenneth L. Watters, Provost and Vice Chancellor at UWM. However, on November 7, 2003, Rita Cheng, then Associate Vice Chancellor at UWM, informed Ronald Singer, Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs at UW System Administration, of the campus's decision not to implement the program because the Department lacked sufficient faculty resources at that time. Over the last three years, the number and areas of specialization of faculty members in the Department have increased significantly, accompanied by broad programmatic innovations in the undergraduate curriculum. As a result, the Department now is in a position to move ahead with the development of the M.A. in Spanish, which it believes is urgently needed in order to offer qualified graduates a more thorough training in Hispanic culture and literature and in the Spanish language than is possible in MAFLL. The MAFLL program, by definition, is interdisciplinary and interdepartmental, and thus limits the extent to which students can concentrate in Hispanic language, literature, and culture. The M.A. in Spanish will allow immersion in the study of the Spanish language and the culture and literatures of the Hispanic world, and the name of the degree will emphasize the program's disciplinary integrity. The goal of the Spanish M.A. is to prepare students to pursue additional advanced degrees or careers in teaching and other fields that require full proficiency in the Spanish language as well as mastery of Hispanic literature and culture. A significant element favoring the implementation of an M.A. in Spanish is the strong demand by students. Currently (July 2005), MAFLL enrolls a total of 80 students, of which 15 are in the Spanish concentration; in addition, 14 of the 24 students in the Translation track chose Spanish as their source language. It is likely that most of the students who enroll in MAFLL with the intention of concentrating in Spanish will enroll instead in the Spanish M.A. program once it is approved. This will not be the only source of students for the M.A. program, however. We expect that the program will appeal to many people in the greater Milwaukee area and southeastern Wisconsin who want or need to pursue a graduate degree in Spanish but who were not attracted to the MAFLL program. The M.A. in Spanish will attract new students from this population. The impact of the Spanish M.A. on enrollments in the MAFLL program will be ameliorated by the fact that the Spanish Translation students will remain in MAFLL. The MAFLL program will continue to attract students wanting to pursue concentrations in Comparative Literature, Classics, French, German, and Linguistics. Faculty from the Department of Spanish and Portuguese will continue to collaborate in teaching the MAFLL 706 Seminar in Foreign Language Methodology and Pedagogy and other MAFLL core seminars. The Department of Spanish and Portuguese has a number of graduate seminars that it offers under MAFLL, normally at the rate of two per semester. The present curriculum dates from 1994, when it was modified in order to make it more flexible and responsive to programmatic desires. The courses are organized by periods and fields; they encourage the structuring of the material around one or more topics. In addition, the department has a great variety of 400- and 500-level undergraduate/graduate (U/G) courses in Spanish Peninsular, Spanish-American, and U.S. Latino literature and culture, as well as in advanced language, linguistics, translation, and interpreting. These courses are offered at the rate of six to eight per semester. The 500-level courses are conducted as seminars, with an enrollment capacity of 15 students. The proposed program's curriculum consists of the courses mentioned above and also relies on advanced courses offered by the Department of English, the Program in Comparative Literature, and MAFLL. All these courses (identified in 4.2.2 below) are part of the regular offerings of the above-mentioned department and programs.
2.2	Instructional Setting: Housed in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, the proposed M.A. in Spanish program will be in the College of Letters and Science. As part of the College, it will be able to draw on the considerable curricular resources of MAFLL, the Department of English, and the program in Comparative Literature, which is part of the Department of French, Italian, and Comparative Literature (see below under Curriculum for detailed information on how those courses will be integrated with the Spanish M.A.). The Department also enjoys excellent working relationships with the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, the Center for International Education, the Center for 21st Century Studies, and the Roberto Hernández Center.
2.3	Relation to Mission Statement and Academic Plan: The mission statement of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese states that it aspires to assume "a leadership role in disseminating Hispanic culture, not only within the campus . . . but in the Milwaukee area too." The M.A. in Spanish will revolve around two essential goals: to provide students with a rigorous critical foundation and to allow them ample opportunity for intensive scholarly work based on a strong foundation in the literatures and cultures of Spain and Latin America, as well as linguistic theories and praxis. By doing so, it will contribute effectively to fulfilling the Department's mission and UWM's goal of becoming "one of America's premier urban universities." Two recent academic developments are relevant to this proposal: first, in light of Chancellor Carlos Santiago's initiative to expand the number of doctoral programs at UWM, the Department of Spanish and Portuguese now is developing a proposal for a Ph.D. in Spanish, Latin American, and U.S. Latino Studies, a program that would be the only one of its kind in the State of Wisconsin. Second, the Department also is participating actively in the creation and implementation of a new undergraduate Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Latino studies major that is likely to be housed in the Department. This undergraduate major will serve as a natural source of students for the new MA in Spanish, which in turn will prepare students for the Ph.D. program. Therefore, the M.A. in Spanish fits very well within UWM's commitment to provide quality programs that enhance career and research opportunities for the inhabitants of Milwaukee and the surrounding area. That commitment is an integral part of the mission of UWM's College of Letters and Science.

III. NEED

3.1	Comparable Programs in Wisconsin: There is only one M.A. in Spanish in the UW System, that of UW-Madison. In Milwaukee only Marquette University offers an M.A. as well as an M.A.T. in Spanish. These programs are very small and, because Marquette is a private university, rather costly for students who do not receive teaching assistantships. Three area colleges, Alverno, Carroll, and Concordia, offer M.A.s in Education that allow students to do some work in Spanish. We expect UWM's M.A. in Spanish to become the natural destination for those persons living in southeastern Wisconsin who are interested in pursuing a graduate degree in Spanish. It is very likely that we will find among that group many Hispanics, whose number in the greater Milwaukee area already has surpassed 79,000, or about 10 percent of the population of Milwaukee, according to the 2003 estimated U.S. Census.
3.2	Comparable Programs Outside Wisconsin: Programs similar to the one we are proposing exist in Illinois, Michigan, Iowa, and Minnesota and are available to qualified college graduates from Wisconsin. The population of southeastern Wisconsin, however, includes a pool of individuals who may be interested in graduate study in Spanish but who, because of work and family commitments, are placed-bound.
3.3	Regional, State and National Needs: MAFLL graduates with a concentration in Spanish have done very well, some of them extraordinarily well, in securing employment, mainly as secondary school teachers, but also as instructors in community and even four-year colleges. Some have found jobs in business and in government agencies. Given present national trends in demand for qualified English-Spanish bilingual individuals, there is no reason to doubt that graduates of UWM's M.A. in Spanish will find employment easily in education, international business, public policy, law, criminal justice, and social work. In fact, the new M.A. in Spanish might make it easier for them to obtain jobs, both because their training in Spanish will be more rigorous than now is possible through MAFLL and because the title of their degree will identify their expertise to prospective employers more clearly than does the MAFLL degree with a Spanish concentration For students who wish to pursue the Ph.D. in Spanish with its focus on Peninsular Spanish or Latin American literature, an M.A. in Spanish, rather than a concentration in Spanish (as provided by MAFLL), would be immensely more valuable. In fact, recent data reflecting results of MAFLL final comprehensive exams clearly show that the MAFLL program falls short in preparing students to enter some of the top programs in the country. As explained above (3.1), opportunities for graduate study in Spanish in southeastern Wisconsin are extremely limited. At the same time, the demand for Spanish teachers in the Milwaukee area (and in the whole country) is growing constantly, as is the demand for persons fluent in what already is the second language in the United States, spoken by some 30 million people. In fact, it could be argued-and has been by some-that Spanish is no longer a foreign language in the United States.
3.4	Student Demand-Future Enrollment: As of July 2005, there are 15 students with a concentration in Spanish in MAFLL, which has a total enrollment of 80 students in all areas of specialization. For reasons already mentioned (see section 2.1 above), we are confident, once an M.A. in Spanish is created at UWM, that most college graduates wishing to pursue a graduate degree in Spanish at UWM will opt for the new M.A. and that this group will include persons in the Milwaukee area and in southeastern Wisconsin who otherwise would not enroll in graduate study at UWM. The intensive study of the Spanish language, cultures, and literatures offered by the proposed M.A. will make its graduates highly competitive candidates for admission to the best doctoral programs in the U.S., while the ones who choose to follow alternate professional routes will be very attractive to employers of all kinds. As currently is the case under MAFLL, we expect to continue to draw the largest number of applicants to the program from teachers and prospective teachers of high schools and intermediate schools. To make them fully proficient in Spanish and conversant with the whole scope of Hispanic culture is the program's most important goal. Initially, we anticipate between 15 and 20 students will enroll in the program. This number should increase rapidly if the program is well advertised throughout the Milwaukee area, southeastern Wisconsin, and the UW Colleges within a 100-mile radius. It is likely that the total number of students enrolled in the M.A. in Spanish will increase to 30 over the first five years, including both full-time and part-time students. Institutional management enrollment targets call for an increase in graduate enrollments. The M.A. in Spanish will be an excellent recruiting tool for UWM at the regional and, eventually, the national level.
3.5	Collaborative or Alternative Program Exploration: We do not believe it is feasible to offer the proposed M.A. cooperatively with another institution in the area (see section 3.1 above for discussion of M.A.s, M.A.T.s, and Masters in Education in the Milwaukee area) nor would it be effective as a "sub-major" of an existing program. On the other hand, we will investigate the possibility of collaborating with UW campuses relatively close to UWM (e.g., Parkside, Oshkosh, Stevens Point, and Green Bay), to allow students from those areas to enroll in our program and to complete appropriate courses at those campuses for transfer to UWM (within limits allowed by our Graduate School) to count toward the M.A. in Spanish. The new M.A. program will benefit from the Department's extensive collaboration with the UWM Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, the Center for International Education, the School of Education, the English Department, the Department of Foreign Languages and Linguistics, and the Department of French, Italian and Comparative Literature, among other departments, centers, and programs on campus. The requirement of one course in Spanish or Latin American history for all students will enhance our collaboration with the Department of History.

IV. PROGRAM DESCRIPTION AND EVALUATION

4.1	Objectives: The program consists of a series of courses structured to form a coherent whole designed to make students fully conversant with Hispanic literature, culture, and linguistic issues, as well as proficient in the Spanish language. Spanish M.A. graduates who subsequently wish to pursue the Ph.D. will be very advanced in the process of mastering the area in which they wish to specialize in their doctoral studies.
4.1.1	Admission to the M.A. Program The application for admission to the Spanish M.A. program must be submitted to the Graduate School, along with transcripts and other required documents. Requirements for admission to full graduate standing in the Department are as follows: a bachelor's degree from an accredited college or university with a major in Spanish, foreign languages with an emphasis in Spanish, comparative literature, Hispanic linguistics, or translation; a 3.0 grade point average in the last 60 hours of undergraduate course work; superior proficiency in spoken and written Spanish according to ACTFL guidelines; a narrative statement of intent, written in Spanish, that describes the applicant's accomplishments and plans for the future; three letters of recommendation from former professors or advisors; and a content-based placement examination that is mandatory for all students seeking admission to the MA program. Application must be completed by April 1 for consideration for admission in the fall semester, and by October 1 for the spring semester. Applicants who hold a BA in Spanish but do not have the requisite 3.0 grade point average may be admitted on probation for one semester, provided they have at least a 2.75 grade point average. Any course submitted for transfer must be no more than five years old at the time of the student's admission to the Spanish M.A. program, must have been taken at the graduate level in an accredited institution, and must have been completed with a grade of B or better. Applicants who have not completed at least one advanced-level college course in Latin American or Spanish history must do so in the course of their graduate program. If taken for graduate credit, this course will count toward the minimum number of credits required for the M.A.
4.2	Curriculum: The MA degree in Spanish offers both non-thesis and thesis options. Non-Thesis Option: Students pursuing the non-thesis option must complete a minimumof thirty (30) hours of acceptable graduate level course work (including the courses specifically required) and receive a passing grade on the final comprehensive examination. Thesis Option: Requirements for the thesis option are twenty four (24) hours of acceptable graduate level course work, a thesis for which a maximum of six (6) credit hours is granted, and a final comprehensive examination. A maximum of six (6) hours of 400-level course work is allowed as part of the major.
4.2.1	General requirements for graduation: At least 30 graduate credits beyond the B.A. degree, as outlined in Section 4.2.2 below, must be completed. All graduate teaching assistants are required to enroll in MAFLL 706 Seminar in Foreign Language Methodology and Pedagogy during their first year. Students must demonstrate reading competency in a second Romance language. In order to do so, they may take the departmental graduate reading exam or complete two semesters or eight hours in another language. Courses taken to complete this requirement do not count toward the minimum credits required for the M.A. A comprehensive final examination is required for both the thesis and non-thesis options. The examination is administered during the twelfth week of each semester. It is based on courses taken by the student and on the reading list provided to all incoming students. Graduate assistants are required to enroll in a minimum of six (6) credit hours of graduate-level courses per semester. Courses taken to complete 3 above may count toward this minimum enrollment credit requirement.
4.2.2	Prescribed Course Work The following courses are required for all students in the Spanish M.A.: Spanish 441 History of the Spanish Language (or equivalent); MAFLL/Comp Lit 707 Seminar in Literary Analysis (or equivalent). (Courses with numbers below 700 are U/G courses.) 15 credits in Spanish or Spanish-American literature and culture courses at the 700 level or above (this allows for the creation of 800- and 900-level courses for the Ph.D. that also may count toward the M.A). A minimum of 6 credits in advanced undergraduate and/or graduate language and/or linguistics courses in Spanish. 6 credits in advanced undergraduate and/or graduate courses in Spanish culture, language, linguistics, literature, or thesis. The requirements listed above are understood as minimal requirements. Some students may need to take more courses in order to complete the degree if they are accepted with deficiencies. They also may choose to take additional courses to deepen their knowledge of a particular area. The program is conceived as being flexible; i.e., the major professor may make substitutions based on the special needs of each student or on the availability of courses. Spanish Graduate Courses: 701 Historical Grammar 705 Seminar in the Structure of the Spanish Language: (Subtitle) 751 Seminar in Medieval Literature and Related Topics: (Subtitle) 755 Seminar in Renaissance Literature and Related Topics: (Subtitle) 757 Seminar in One or More Areas of Siglo de Oro Literature and Related Topics: (Subtitle) 759 Seminar in the Literature of the Enlightenment and Related Topics: (Subtitle) 763 Seminar in Romantic Literature of Spain and/or Spanish America and Related Topics: (Subtitle) 767 Seminar on Realistic Literature of Spain and/or Spanish America and Related Topics: (Subtitle) 769 Seminar in Twentieth Century Literature of Spain and/or Spanish America and Related Topics: (Subtitle) 771 Seminar in Early Spanish American Literature and Related Topics: (Subtitle) 781 Seminar in Hispanic Literature: (Subtitle) 783 Seminar in Latino Literature and Related Topics: (Subtitle) 791 Spanish Culture and Related Topics: (Subtitle) 793 Spanish-American Culture and Related Topics: (Subtitle) 795 Hispanic Culture: (Subtitle) 799 Independent Work Spanish Undergraduate/Graduate Courses: 340 Phonetics 344 Spanish Syntax 401 Medieval Literature: (Subtitle) 403 The Renaissance in Spain: (Subtitle) 405 Golden Age Literature: (Subtitle) 407 Golden Age Drama: (Subtitle) 409 Cervantes: (Subtitle) 411 The Enlightenment in Spain: (Subtitle) 415 Romanticism and Realism: (Subtitle) 417 Modern Spanish Literature: (Subtitle) 419 Contemporary Spanish Literature: (Subtitle) 441 History of the Spanish Language 445 Topics in the Spanish Language: (Subtitle) 447 Seminar in Advanced Translation: Spanish to English 448 Seminar in Advanced Translation: English to Spanish 451 Pre-Columbian and Chronicle Literature: (Subtitle) 453 Spanish-American Colonial Literature: (Subtitle) 455 Nineteenth Century Spanish-American Literature: (Subtitle) 457 Modern Spanish-American Literature: (Subtitle) 459 Contemporary Spanish-American Literature: (Subtitle) 506 Seminar in Spanish Literature: (Subtitle) 507 Seminar in Spanish-American Literature: (Subtitle) 508 Seminar in Hispanic Literature: (Subtitle) 510 Seminar in a Hispanic Writer: (Subtitle)
4.2.3	The M.A. Comprehensive Final Examination Students enrolled in the thesis and non-thesis options take the same M.A comprehensive examination. Students are urged to take the examination no later than the fourth semester of graduate study. The comprehensive examination is a written examination that is scheduled for the 12th week in each semester. It is based on courses taken by the student and on the Department's established reading list. The entire major field is covered. Spanish majors take a one-hour examination in each of the following fields (6 hours total): Spanish Peninsular Literature - Medieval - Golden Age - Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth Century Spanish-American Literature - Colonial - Nineteenth Century - Twentieth Century At the discretion of the Examination Committee, students who are found to be deficient in any area may be asked to take an oral exam within one week of the written exam. Spanish faculty members prepare questions in their fields of specialization for the comprehensive examination. One faculty member grades all portions of a student's examination. If the faculty reader judges a portion of the examination to be of failing or doubtful quality, at least one other faculty member reads that portion. When the entire examination is judged to be of doubtful quality, the graduate faculty members of the student's area of concentration make recommendations concerning the student's status in the program. The student may be asked to repeat the examination or may be granted a passing grade with the recommendation that s/he not continue graduate study towards the Ph.D. Students who fail the examination in whole or in part may repeat the entire exam or the failed portion, as appropriate, only once during any subsequent regularly scheduled period.
4.2.4	The MA Thesis Students in the thesis option should choose an area of specialization for the thesis as early as possible. After a thesis topic is chosen, students, with the approval of the major professor, select two additional members of the graduate faculty in the area of concentration to serve as the thesis committee. A member of the graduate faculty specializing in the student's area of concentration acts as the thesis director and chair of the committee. A maximum of six (6) thesis hours is allowed toward the M.A. degree. The MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers must be followed in preparing the thesis.
4.3	Interrelationship with Other Curricula: The requirements of the Spanish M.A. are structured to include course work outside the Department, thereby supporting other related disciplines. See Section 4.2.2 above for a list of MAFLL, Comparative Literature, and English courses that are part of the curriculum. In addition, students are required to have taken or to take one course in Latin American or Spanish history, and they must also demonstrate proficiency in a second Romance language by passing an exam or taking courses.
4.4	Method of Assessment or Evaluation: Students will be asked to assemble a portfolio containing selected research papers that have earned superior grades and comments from faculty members concerning their quality. After successfully completing the final comprehensive examination, students will submit their portfolios to their major professors and will be asked to provide a "Completion of M.A. Program Evaluation Form" assessing the value of the courses they have taken and making recommendations for improving any aspects of the program that they deem in need of revising. An objective appraisal of the results of the comprehensive examinations of the first graduating class of M.A. students also will help the departmental faculty assess how the program's goals are being achieved. Student performance in classes, exams, and papers will permit the Department to assess students' daily progress within the program's parameters. Graduates of the program will be contacted three years after they have graduated and asked to assess a second time how the program has helped them to achieve their professional goals. After the program has been in existence for five years, a three-member committee made up of UWM faculty in foreign languages and related disciplines will formally assess the program's success as part of the self-study required for the Graduate Review Committee's five-year review. The assessment will include courses (as expressed mainly in student evaluations of teaching), advising (both academic and career), and the success of the program's graduates in obtaining jobs in their fields of concentration.
4.5	Accreditation Requirement: Not applicable
4.6	Diversity: The very nature of this program provides many opportunities to serve diversity goals not only among students but also in the faculty. The program's focus on the language, literatures, and cultures of the Hispanic world is expected to attract students not only from the United States, but from Spain, Latin America, the Caribbean, and other geographic areas where there is a Hispanic cultural influence. A strong indication that diversity is in fact guaranteed can be found in the ethnic, cultural, and gender diversity of students now in the MAFLL program who are concentrating in Spanish.
4.7	Strengths or Unique Features: Prospective students will be particularly attracted to this program (as contrasted with a concentration in Spanish in the MAFLL program) because the curriculum of the new M.A. will require extensive study of Spanish language, literature and culture. The program will prepare students to become well-qualified teachers or to seek employment in the private and public sectors, as well as to be admitted to the most rigorous Spanish Ph.D. programs in the country. The population of southeastern Wisconsin includes a pool of individuals who may be interested in graduate study in Spanish but who, because of work and family commitments, are place-bound and, therefore, unable to enroll in the programs at Madison and out-of-state. UWM's Spanish M.A. will meet the needs of those persons. It also must be noted that the Department has a world-class faculty capable of offering the highest level of instruction in their specific areas of specialization. The emphasis that the MA in Spanish places on personal academic and career advising (see Section 4.8 below) and close monitoring of its students is a very important component of its uniqueness.
4.8	Academic and Career Advising: The Department's graduate advisor and the student's major professor are committed to ensuring that students succeed in the program and in whatever careers they choose. To achieve this result, faculty members will monitor the students' progress very closely while advising them on all matters related to the program, including career options, at every stage of their studies. Also, students holding teaching assistant contracts will have to undergo rigorous training before they start teaching. Their classes will be visited regularly by the Coordinator of Spanish Language Instruction, who also will meet with them to discuss his/her impression of those visits. Throughout the semester, the Coordinator will meet regularly with TAs and various members of the teaching staff, including faculty and lecturers, to discuss language instruction.
4.9	Outreach (if applicable): For a discussion of how the program provides a public service, see Sections 2.3 and 3.3.
4.10	Integration with Technology: Graduate level courses and seminars in Spanish language, literature, and culture require extensive reading, writing, and research activities. Consequently, the intensive use of the Internet is essential as a research tool as well as the means to locate primary and secondary texts not readily available in the UWM library. Many literary journals now are available only electronically. Syllabi normally are posted on faculty D2L or web pages, and communications between faculty and students are mostly by electronic mail. Research papers and other written assignments can be submitted electronically, if required by the instructor.
4.11	Collaboration and Distance Education: Initially, the program would not involve distance education but the courses would be suitable for distance education if desired in the future.
4.12	Access for Individuals with Disabilities: The Department complies, and will continue to comply, with all regulations set forth by the Student Accessibility Center (Division of Academic Affairs) as stated in their guidelines revised August 22, 2003.

V. PERSONNEL

5.1	Faculty Participating Directly in the Program: The following individuals in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese are members of the Graduate Faculty: Professor Ismael P. Márquez Associate Professor R. John McCaw Associate Professor Jeffrey Oxford Associate Professor Susan Rascón Associate Professor Kathleen Wheatley Assistant Professor Margaret Crosby Assistant Professor Bryan Kennedy Assistant Professor Gabriel Rei-Doval See Appendix A for curriculum vitae.
5.2	Advisory Faculty: The Department of Spanish and Portuguese has very strong ties to the MAFLL Program, of which it is now part. Professional and personal contacts with MAFLL faculty members are frequent; language instructors meet regularly to discuss matters of mutual interest and concern. These individuals will contribute to the vitality of the Spanish M.A. program through their involvement in the teaching of our students.
5.3	Additional Faculty Requirements: Initially, the proposed new program will not require additional faculty. However, if the M.A. growth projections are attained as expected, it will require at least one more assistant or associate professor within the first two years of the program. Additional tuition revenue from increased enrollments will underwrite this position. The Program's most pressing need is for a specialist in Mexican literature and culture with a secondary area of specialization in U.S. Latino literature and culture. A specialist in Spanish Caribbean and Afro-Caribbean literature and culture also will be sought in the near future as enrollments increase. These two areas complement fields of specialization already available in the Department. Recruitment of new faculty members as enrollments increase is especially important because of the Department's commitment to close monitoring of students by faculty, a feature of the program that is one of its salient strengths.
5.4	Academic Staff: No additions to the academic staff are needed for the program.
5.5	Classified Staff: The Department presently is staffed with a full-time Academic Departmental Associate and a half-time Limited Term Employee. At this time, no additions to the classified staff are necessary to launch the program. Its projected growth at some point in the near future, however, may require hiring one additional full-time classified employee to replace the LTE.

VI. ACADEMIC SUPPORT SERVICES

6.1

Library Resources:

The Golda Meir Library, with over 4 million catalogued items, has a Hispanic collection more than adequate to sustain an M.A. program. For research needs that cannot be fulfilled by the resources available at UWM's library, students in the program can use, as does the faculty, UW-Madison's collection, one of the best in the country. Marquette University's library, although inferior to UWM's in overall resources, has texts and periodicals that the latter does not own because they were no longer available when UWM was founded. The catalogues of those two libraries can be accessed from UWM, and graduate students can borrow books from them in person or through Interlibrary Loan.

VII. FACILITIES - EQUIPMENT

7.1	Capital Resources: These are the same ones currently used by the Department of Spanish and Portuguese.
7.2	Capital Budget Needs: No additional facilities or capital equipment are needed unless new faculty recruitment is approved. (See: 5.3 above)

VIII. FINANCE

8.1	Operating Budget Requirements: No new funding is required immediately to launch this program. Our plans assume the continuation of the support the Department now receives for the undergraduate teaching of basic language courses in the form of TAs, full-time, and ad-hoc lecturers. As discussed in section 5.3 above, funds will be required for new faculty positions as increasing enrollments warrant new hiring. The accompanying Estimated Total Costs and Income Budget allows for the additional cost of a new faculty member at the rank of Associate Professor starting in the second year. A new full-time classified employee has also been budgeted for the second year and following years.
8.2	Operating Budget-S&E Requirements: The program will require a small increase in the department's S&E budget (presently $16,835) mainly to cover the cost of brochures and their distribution to colleges and other places in the area from which we may attract applicants (estimated cost: $1000). If the success of the program results in an increase in the number of faculty members, the departmental S&E budget will have to be increased to address the needs of these new faculty members.
8.3	Operating Budget Reallocation: Not applicable.
8.4	Extramural Research Support: Support for research in the humanities is very limited, and even more so at the non-doctoral level. The graduate advisor, who will function as the program's director, and the departmental faculty members will be looking for extramural funding possibilities, be they System-wide, federal, or private, that may increase the program's resources and enhance its stature among similar programs.