OU boasts a sizable number of students of Korean and Vietnamese descent, but OU offers no programs in either language.

The department of Modern Languages offers 10 different foreign languages, as well as four Native American languages. Of these 10 languages, Chinese and Japanese make up the Asian language portion.

“China and Japan have received significant attention not only at OU, but at colleges and universities across the country, largely because of these countries’ economic and political influence in the contemporary world,” Japanese professor Elyssa Faison said. “This emphasis on China and Japan at OU is driven by these more global forces.”

There were more than 1,200 students with Asian background at OU in 2007.

“President [David L.] Boren always talks about diversity, and adding more Asian classes would attract more students to OU because not many colleges offer those languages,” said Vietnamese-American Nghia Phan, nursing junior.

This would also call for the hiring of more faculty members which would be a problem because of OU’s current hiring freeze and the state of the economy, Faison said.

“I fear that the bottom line at this point is that we do not have the financial resources to begin offering new languages,” said Pamela Genova, chair of the modern languages department. “We are constantly reviewing and considering possible future options for various languages, and are doing our best to fulfill the needs of students here at OU.”

Most universities around the country are able to start programs like these through large amounts of private or government funding, both of which have not yet been made available to OU.

Many students and officials said languages give students the tools to understand other cultures and people groups. This is important to Americans because of how much the nation deals with Asian countries, said Jinsoo Kim, president of the Korean Student Association.

“Learning new languages could give students a broad perspective,” Kim said. “Most Asian countries have a long history of more than 500 years. The history has naturally melted into the language. It’s possible that there is an invisible wall between American students and Korean students because of the way they think, it can cause a miscommunication. I think a Korean class can solve that problem.”

Even though OU only offers two Asian languages, it does offer a variety of languages that are closer to Oklahoma. The university offers four Native American languages: Choctaw, Cherokee, Creek and Kiowa.

OU is the home to one of the country’s premier Native American studies programs, Faison said. The program also offers courses in Native American history, anthropology, and literature as well as languages. The Native American language program began in the early 1990s.

“The program began with Choctaw and interests began to grow within the students. So, OU began to offer more languages,” Choctaw professor Lee Sealy said. “Currently, all the classes are pretty full. It enables the students to feel a connection. Even if they aren’t Native American, they feel like they can better understand Oklahoma and its culture.”

This model is what the Asian language program strives to resemble. Like the Native American languages program, many Asian-American students say they would be able to build a personal connection with their heritage, and hold on to a part of their ancestry.

“It’s important because many of us are forgetting our language and our cultural way of thinking,” said Vietnamese-American Sally Lee, microbiology sophomore. “It leaves us without a cultural identity because so much of our culture is in our language.”