A University student who learns to read a poem in Swahili or read a Japanese short story for course credit should be thankful for the opportunity, because not every university offers these courses.

The American Comparative Literature Association drew up a report to change this, presenting students with a larger variety of comparative literature courses.

Charles Bernheimer, who headed the committee that wrote the report, said one of the report's main objectives is to "open" comparative literature study -- to include more than just Eurocentric literature from countries such as France, Spain and Germany.

Some universities, such as Penn State, have already begun this change and the report is to "put weight positively behind the movement," he said.

Caroline Eckhardt, comparative literature department head, said one of the report's weaknesses is that it does not recognize universities that have already accomplished much of the report's suggestions.

Penn State's comparative literature major has a small number of students, but at any given time 600 to 1,000 students are enrolled in the classes.

University students who are comparative literature majors have a variety of international and intra-American literature available to them. Arabic, Japanese and Swahili literature are only a few of the diverse courses available.

Brian Anthony (senior-comparative literature) is taking advantage of the opportunity to learn about more varied literature by studying Greek and Arabic literature, in addition to German and English literature.

"There is an incredible amount of literature which is untouched," Anthony said, adding that it is a good idea for students to be given the opportunity to study diverse literature.

The University is a pioneer in comparative literature, having offered diverse literature courses for about 20 years, Eckhardt said. In the past two or three years, more Korean has been added to basic courses, as well as more feminist and cultural approaches, she said.

But the changes won't stop there, Eckhardt said. This fall a freshman seminar on updated family relations will be offered.