reports

Report of the General Board on the establishment of a Department of German and Dutch

The GENERAL BOARD beg leave to report to the University as follows:

1. In this Report the General Board propose the merger of that part of the Department of Other Languages concerned with Dutch with the Department of German, to create a new Department of German and Dutch in place of the current Department of German. The proposal follows extensive discussions and consultation, involving the staff of the two Departments, the Faculty Board of Modern and Medieval Languages, and the Council of the School of the Arts and Humanities.

2. At present provision in Dutch, which has been taught in Cambridge since 1946, is offered through the Department of Other Languages, which also has teaching and research capabilities in Modern Greek. The Faculty Board consider that the proposed merger would have a number of advantages: there are academic linkages between German and Dutch; it would offer a better opportunity for the safeguarding of the continuation of provision in Dutch once the current University Teaching Officer in Dutch retires; the proposed integration of Dutch within a new Department of German and Dutch would, in the Faculty Board's opinion, provide the most propitious conditions for Dutch to raise its profile in the Faculty and in the national and international context. (Across the UK, undergraduate courses in Dutch are now limited to a very small number of universities.) The Faculty Board are also of the view that the integration of Dutch within a new Department would enable better streamlining of Dutch papers within the Modern and Medieval Languages Tripos. It is also anticipated that the integration would optimize the potential for the recruitment of students of Dutch from a (larger) pool of students in German who would have a natural interest in studying another member of the same family of languages. By the same token, integration would encourage a synergy in the teaching of Dutch and German philology. It may also be noted that German and Dutch belong to the same RAE (Research Assessment Exercise) unit of assessment, demonstrating the linkages between the two languages.

3. The proposed merger would not incur any additional costs for the Faculty.

4. The Faculty Board of Modern and Medieval Languages have consulted the University Teaching Officers in the Department of Other Languages who concur with the proposal now made. The General Board expect to receive further proposals from the Faculty Board on the future of the Department of Other Languages at a later date. These proposals will be the subject of a further Report to the University.

5. The General Board recommend:

I. That a Department of German and Dutch be established within the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages with effect from 1 January 2007, in place of the existing Department of German.

II. That, with effect from the same date, all references to the Department of German in the Statutes and Ordinances be replaced by references to the Department of German and Dutch.

III. That, with effect from the same date, the following Professorships and Readerships be reassigned to the Department of German and Dutch:

The Professorship of German (Schröder)
The Professorship of Modern Languages
The Readership in Modern German Studies
The Readership in German Literature and Culture
The Readership in Modern German and Comparative Culture