Two years ago, two Computer Science majors applied to Macalester’s German Study Abroad Program. They had both been studying German-one would later declare a major-and both were enrolled in “Culture Component,” the program’s mandatory two-credit on-campus preparatory course, when they received some startling news: Macalester had rejected their study abroad proposal.

The news was all the more surprising to Ellis Dye, co-chair of German Studies, because in all of the first 25 years of the German program’s existence, not once had the Study Abroad Review Committee rejected one of its participants.

“I have been part of this program since it began in 1969,” Dye said. “And up until two years ago we never had any trouble with SARC.”

The German department immediately appealed the decision to the Curriculum Committee, and in the end, Provost Dan Hornbach stepped in and reversed SARC’s decision.

The next year, SARC denied three students, two of whom were reinstated on appeal.

The most recent and most widely publicized German Study Abroad Program denial was Colin Kennedy ’04, who is currently suing Macalester for $50,000. Kennedy claims that Macalester discriminated against him by failing to take into account the effect his depression had on his GPA.

Professor Dye has been heavily involved in all six appeals over the last three years, and he has become deeply suspicious of SARC.

In a letter to The Mac Weekly last week he wrote: “The members of the Department of German Studies and Russian … have been given sufficient reason in the last three years for objecting to seeing their admissions decisions overturned by a motley sub-committee made up of non-professionals.”

According to Hornbach, the sudden surge of denials to the German program over the last three years is not the result of personnel changes in SARC or a conspiracy against the program, but rather is a case of strained resources.

“In the past very few students were ever denied study abroad, unless they were applying to a bad program, or we saw that they had a lack of preparation,” Hornbach said. “Now we have to do a prioritization of students.”

In 2001-2002, Macalester only had enough money budgeted to send 216 students abroad for one semester, and had to deny approximately five percent of applications, according to Study Abroad Coordinator Katherine Yngve.

Hornbach says that the college tries to increase its study abroad budget every year, but that it is still difficult to keep up with students’ demands.

Dye has had some success in changing the way that Macalester deals with his program-most importantly instituting an “early decision” provision.

Under the provision, students interested in participating in the Macalester program, which runs every spring semester, would apply during the previous spring. This way students could find out whether they were accepted before enrolling in the preparatory class, offered in the fall.

This will be the first year that the “early decision” provision will be in effect.

But Dye is still unhappy about the prospect of having students, whom his department deems qualified for its program, rejected by SARC.

“I think we should be out from under SARC altogether,” Dye said. “We can face up to budgetary realities as well as anybody else. If they gave us a cap of eight or ten, we could deal with it.”

Dye thinks his program should be considered separately because it is designed as a group experience, as opposed to an individual one. Virtually all of the students who participate are from Macalester; they all take the same class together in the fall, and they spend a full six months together in Tübingen and Vienna.

The problem is, he says, that SARC “thinks that it is all a matter of individual competition for a prize.”

“The way to run a college,” Dye said, “is to hire good faculty and then leave them alone. You don’t tie their hands; you don’t stand in their way.”

For his part, SARC member Carleton Macy sees nothing wrong with the German program having its own budget. But he says that “as long as there is a single pool of money and a single pool of applicants,” SARC will subject students of German to the same criteria as students applying to other programs.

“We are not rubber stamping applications,” Macy said. “If we were, then we really would be that ‘motley crew.’”

Macy also said that, until this year, his committee had not received any guidance from German Studies on how its program worked-particularly the fact that German likes to see many of its students go abroad during their sophomore year. SARC typically ranks juniors and seniors above sophomores, who will have more chances to study abroad in the future.

The committee now makes an exception and puts sophomores on even footing with juniors if they are applying for the German Study Abroad Program.

“I hope that Professor Dye knows that we are not against his program,” Macy said. “We understand it now, and we are very supportive of the program.”