Several recent letters to the Journal-World’s Public Forum have responded to the May 14 Saturday Column calling for Kansas University officials to place more emphasis on foreign language instruction. The letter writers, all university faculty members, have defended the university’s offerings, with one writer suggesting KU already was one of the nation’s leaders in this area.

This is debatable, but if indeed the school is doing a good job in offering languages and is a national leader in this field and, as some letter writers have said, is placing more emphasis on Chinese, Arabic and Russian, this is good news. Those in charge of languages at KU are to be congratulated.

However, it would be wrong for these language people to think they are meeting all the needs. In fact, it is just a start, particularly in some of the critical languages fields such as Arabic, Chinese (both Mandarin and Cantonese and a few of the more than 50 minority “ethnic” languages such as Uiqhur and Tibetan), Korean and Japanese. How many teachers does KU have in these fields? And how long have some positions been open?

Hopefully, the strong defensive response to the column concerning KU’s efforts in teaching foreign languages is a signal KU officials recognize the importance and reality of current world conditions, as well as future challenges, and that they are becoming more aware of the importance of giving KU students the best foreign language preparation to enter the highly competitive international environment.

However, as much as some KU officials may want to suggest this new interest in foreign languages originated within the KU campus, it should be acknowledged there has been at least a slight, if not a very strong, nudge urging this action by some off-campus interests.

But again, congratulations, and hopefully this is just a start on a major increase in the school’s foreign language focus.