In just a quick, unofficial research of other local colleges, I found some common points in their language departments. The languages that were included were referred to as having "global" influence, important in the marketplace and business world, were used by large numbers of people (currently, in the past ["classical"], or both), were not the "official" language of the campus, and were sources of literature. Also, some languages are pre- or co-requisites for courses in other non-language majors. For example, Latin for medical or legal majors, Greek and Hebrew for Bible majors, "classic" languages for archeology and art majors, French for chefs, Asian languages for international business, etc. In other words, each language had some kind of "hook" to justify its necessity for learning.
