All Western Kentucky University students would be allowed to use two credits of high school world language, or equivalent, to fulfill the university’s language requirement under a resolution the University Senate approved Thursday.

The resolution cites a backlog of “approximately 7,000 students who have not met the novice high world language proficiency at WKU.”

According to the resolution, WKU cannot accommodate students testing out of the requirement and there’s also “an insufficient number of seats offered in 102-sections of approved world language courses to meet the annual student demand.”

The resolution also calls on several academic units to create a sustainable plan detailing how the demand can be met going forward with existing university resources and staffing.

Jerry Daday, an associate sociology professor and the executive director of the Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning, said the resolution does not remove the requirement altogether.

“This is an effort to try and save the requirement,” he said at the meeting. “The requirement is still there in this resolution. It’s not removing the requirement, and even for students who we’re basically saying you’ve filled our requirement, we’re requiring them to at least have two years of high school world language.”

Daday described the change as a way to put WKU on better footing.

“At least with this, we clear the decks and for any student showing up in the fall, the requirement is in place and we have a plan to staff it,” he said.

A chart showed 3,158 freshmen, 1,777 sophomores, 1,162 juniors and 620 seniors who hadn’t met the requirement. It put the total number of domestic and international students at 7,070 students. Roughly 3,500 students are expected to enroll next fall and will also need the requirement.

The resolution calls for a plan to be presented by Feb. 15 on how WKU can meet the ongoing demand in a sustainable way. A third change calls for the viability of the requirement to be considered in light of details provided by the plan.