When UNE’s French convenor, Valentina Gosetti, took a look at her enrolment data in 2017 to plan for the year ahead, an ambitious idea began to percolate.
“The stats showed that around 95 per cent of students enrolled in French at UNE were studying online, and over 30 per cent were an Opal-card ride away from UNE Sydney, but we offered the course in Armidale. It began to make sense of our enrolment numbers, which had been falling for years,” she said.
Valentina got to work on a business case in her free time, and introduced the option of attending French classes and other activities at UNE Sydney in Parramatta earlier this year. Everything started to turn around.
“It was the first time in five years we saw the signs of a reversal in the downward trend in enrolments, and we had the best attended intensive school since I arrived,” she said.
“It just suited our learners. There was more flexibility to pop in for the day, and lots more on and off campus opportunities to experience the French and Francophone culture and strengthen partnerships, which are important aspects of the course.”
While Valentina works mainly from the Parramatta campus, also making sure to be back in Armidale at least a couple of weeks each trimester to run seminars and to keep in contact with her ‘wonderful colleagues’ in the School of HASS, students can still choose to study French at the Armidale campus where her colleague Sophie Patrick is based.
“Our French course is now a truly multi-campus experience. We try to recreate the same experience where we can across both campuses, but it’s important to also work with the strengths of each, and I have to thank my amazing colleague Sophie for being such an essential member of the French team and for running activities in Armidale so smoothly,” Valentina said.
Nine months on, she says she, Sophie, and the students have had ‘so much fun’ and enjoyed the ‘community feel’ of the intensive schools, social events, visiting scholars, French clinics and excursions – with a highlight being a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to view The Lady and the Unicorn Tapestries, on loan in Australia for the first time from the Musée de Cluny (Paris).
There is still plenty to look forward to this year, including having visiting scholars Dr Daniel Finch-Race (University of Bristol) and Dr Christie Margrave (the ANU) in residence at UNE Sydney for a week in December to lend their expertise and work on a co-edited journal. And with glowing feedback and enrolments on the rise simply from word-of-mouth, things are looking bright for French in 2019.
Image: UNE Sydney French Breakfast, with students coming from Sydney, Newcastle, and even the Gold Coast.