It is time for a sad goodbye to a beloved professor, and to say hello to new one, but at least there will be a hello! After 32 years of teaching French at Behrend, Dr. Kathryn Willis Wolfe, will now be retiring and, with great determination from Dr. Wolfe, other senior faculty members, and fellow students, the French department will continue on.

Dr. Wolfe started her career at Behrend in 1986. She had previously attended the University of Illinois for a B.A. in French, in 1970, then moved on to get her M.A. and P.H.D in French language and literature at Princeton University in 1973 and 1977. After having both her parents got into college teaching, she decided to try it herself. She focused on French because it was such a challenge, and as a graduate student, realized how fun it actually was to teach the language.

When Wolfe first started with Penn State there were tenure tracks for the French department at every branch of Penn state, whereas today there are only two remaining: Behrend and Altoona. When deciding whether to retire or not she did not want Behrend to lose the tenure track for the next professor after her. Without tenure tracks, they hire in multi-year track positions in which result in people not staying for long, causing constant turnover which is not good for the program. She heavily campaigned to administration about keeping the tenure track with the support of some senior faculty members. The administration said they were going to make a decision by last fall on whether to keep the tenure and the French Department, but then ultimately, it was decided that they wanted more people showing there was interest in the French language. A campaign was then led by English professor and head of the language department, Dr. Champagne, with some other faculty members, showing support for the language. This then led to a student, Carlos Mora, a sophomore year Political Science major, taking action by starting a petition to keep the tenure track for the next French professor. When interviewing Carlos, he stated, “...people discriminate French but it is a global language. It is one of the languages the United Nations recognized out of the five main languages. Why would the administration try to get rid of the tenure track for the next professor if the language is so important?” Carlos’s petition quickly gathered 108 signatures, which he then gave to the chancellor, successfully proving that Behrend should keep French and the tenure track.

Now, that Behrend is seeking another French professor, another issue arises. Why is Dr. Wolfe, the sole French professor at Behrend, not on the committee to choose the next professor? When interviewing Dr. Wolfe, she described how hiring someone for a position like this would go, “…generally speaking when you a have a tenure track position that you are offering, you will have on the committee a series of PHDs in the position and with the basic credentials the same as the spot open, the issue here is we only have one person in French…” yet, she will not be on the committee to choose. She reassuringly commented, “…there are very few jobs out there in French, and since it is a tenure job, there there will be a lot of candidates to choose from.”  Wolfe suggested to the administration that they put the French professor from the Penn State Altoona branch on the committee, but she isn’t sure where they stand at this point. When interviewing students about this, they were often confused and angered about this decision to not have Dr. Wolfe on the committee. Gerard Libra, a junior year Political Science major, stated, “I think it’s kind of weird they are not involving her in the selection process for a new replacement, it’s a little weird for someone who has been with the school for so long and has actually done a good job as a professor they wouldn’t want to choose a replacement with a similar style to her…” and “…she is a great professor for French and I would really like to see her get more of a say in this actual process.”

Although this is a very sad goodbye to Dr. Wolfe, when asked what she would miss most, she easily answered her students, and how they are the reason she has gone far past retirement age. Not only did Dr. Wolfe show such dedication and warmth to her students, she also showed her reasons why everyone should learn a second language and the importance of doing so, “(learning a second language) opens up utterly new vistas to the way in which people look at the world. If you only speak one language you tend to look at things the way people in that language look at things, if you have another language, people don’t always look at things quite the same way… the thing is you realize ultimately by being in contact with people speaking other languages, is that for all of the differences that separate us… human beings have far more in common than they have with what separates them, and to become aware of that, is to become more human.”