This semester at Sacramento State more than half the students requesting sections of Spanish 7 classes were turned away.

Dr. Carol Brown, professor of Spanish and coordinator for the Sac State Foreign Language Requirement, said the university recognizes that Spanish 7 is the most impacted language class.

“The school has been very generous in the effort to provide 10 sections,” Brown said. “We have 20 sections of course work that will fulfill the requirement.”

Those sections include Spanish 2A, 5, and Spanish 7. At the peak enrollment those 20 sections would hold 600 students.

Sac State is one of four California State Universities with a foreign language proficiency requirement. The policy at Sac State adopted in 1992 requires three semesters of a foreign language if a student has not completed four years of a foreign language in high school.

In a 1998 Casper Student Poll, enrolled students indicated which requirement they would most like eliminated. Nearly half of the students polled-45 percent-chose the foreign language requirement. The poll showed about the same proportion of upper and lower division students selected the elimination of the foreign language requirement.

The majority of students attending Sac State choose to fulfill this exit requirement by continuing the study of Spanish from high school. By far the most popular course is Spanish 7, a practical translation class. Students are taught to translate magazine and newspaper articles.

Eleven sections of the class are currently being offered. With 30 students in each section, teachers can enroll 330 students.

But this semester there were more than 900 requests for enrollment in Spanish 7.

Dr. Lewis Robinson, chair of the Foreign Language Department, said the request figure may be skewed due to students trying to add the class. If students try to enroll in more than one section to get the best schedule, they are counted more than once in the initial demand number.

Robinson said seniors trying to fulfill their exit requirements shouldn’t have a problem.

“If the Casper system works the way it’s set up to be used, the seniors have their day to register, and sympathetic professors will add,” Robinson said.

James Brennan, a junior at Sac State, said he took Spanish 7 as a freshman.

“A whole row of seniors needed the class to graduate, and I felt kind of bad because I wasn’t leaving,” he said.

Brennan enrolled in the class through the Casper system.

Robinson said there are alternative ways to fulfill the foreign language exit requirement besides taking Spanish.

“The exit exam can be satisfied with one year of a language you’ve never taken before, if you’ve taken two years of a language in high school,” Robinson said. “It’s nice that we get enough students that want to try something new.”

Jody Backman, a senior at Sac State, said she has been trying to get into the class since her sophomore year.

“I try every semester. I sit and sit, and I get so frustrated,” Backman said. “They knew it was a problem three years ago. I don’t know why it’s still a problem.”

To try to beat the crowd, Backman said she plans to take Spanish 7 during Intersession.

Currently Intersession courses cost around $145 per unit. A three-unit class will cost $435.

A possible plan to help students fulfill their requirement is Year Round Operations. That would mean a three-semester year, with the third semester being in the summer. In the YRO, the summer session would be the regular tuition.

Robinson said the language requirement is currently being looked at.

“The issue is being re-visited even as we speak,” he said. “It needs fine-tuning, not drastic changes or elimination, but fine-tuning.”