Dear FRIT students,

(You receive this message because you are working towards a Major, Minor or Certificate in French or Italian, or because you are enrolled in an advance level French or Italian course this fall.)

As you may have seen, there has been quite some media coverage the last few days of ongoing plans for eliminating, suspending and consolidating many IU degree programs, in response to the new Indiana law HEA 1001. (Since some of these media stories have not been entirely accurate, for brief background please see this IU Today article.)

You may also have seen that our BAs in French and Italian are on the list of degrees affected. While you can read up about the wider background, we wanted to answer the three most pressing questions you are likely to have as a FRIT student.

Q: What does this mean for you, as current student at FRIT?

A: Nothing! The changes that are being decided upon now will only be effective for students starting in the summer of 2026. There is zero impact on all current undergraduate students and students starting Fall 2025.

Q: But what will happen with the French and Italian BA longterm?

A: Our undergraduate degree programs have been recommended for suspension in view of consolidation, as tracks within larger “umbrella” degrees. The new “umbrella” degree will go through the standard curricular review process this fall.
And as already mentioned, this will not impact your own student experience, since the changes only will apply to students starting in summer 2026, and later requirements.

Q: And what about the department itself?

A: The legislation does not require us to change or merge departments, and there is no discussion at this point about changing departments in any way. 

Please don’t hesitate to reach out with any question you may have to our Undergraduate Services Coordinator Jana McGee, to our Director of Undergraduate Studies in French Nicolas Valazza (or outgoing DUS in French Barbara Vance), our Director of Undergraduate Studies in Italian Karolina Serafin, or to me as Chair of the department. 

Kind regards,

Hall Bjørnstad

(The message above has been slightly updated compared to what was circulated on July 3, mainly regarding the timeline evoked in the answer to the second question.)