Officers at the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department's southeast substation will have the opportunity to learn Spanish this fall via a Spanish for law enforcement course offered by UNLV.

The specialized eight-week class, which will include the teaching of basic Spanish as well as specialized language that police officers are likely to need, will be offered through UNLV's Division of Continuing Education.

"We are offering this course in response to a request from Metro," said Spanish professor Jorge Galindo, who is setting up the class and who coordinates the university's Spanish for the professions major. "Some of the officers at the substation felt that knowing some Spanish would be useful to them in their jobs.

"We're more than happy to help, and we have designed a course that we feel will meet their particular need," he said. "It will be offered at the substation to make it more convenient for the officers, who will be doing this during their off-duty hours."

Dick Gerdes, the new chair of UNLV's department of foreign languages, said the class will differ from the university's usual basic Spanish courses in that it will emphasize specialized vocabulary that officers may need.

"We probably will use situational events based on the officers' real-life experiences to help them build the appropriate vocabulary," Gerdes said. "Our goal is to give them the language skills they need to do their jobs."

Gerdes said the course will include the teaching of some common slang words and phrases that the officers are likely to encounter as well as some information on cultural differences that could prove useful.

Conversations already are under way with another law enforcement agency that has expressed interest in having such a class offered to its personnel, Gerdes said.

"If other law enforcement agencies in Southern Nevada have the need for a similar course, we'd be glad to talk with them and see what we could develop for them," he said.

Gerdes said he thinks awareness is growing in the community about the Spanish for the professions track now offered as both a major and a minor by UNLV's foreign languages department; he thinks that awareness may have led to the request for the Spanish for law enforcement course.

Through the Spanish for the professions track, UNLV students are able to take specialized courses in Spanish for medical professions, for law, for social sciences, for tourism, and for business.

Gerdes said it is possible that some of those credit-granting courses could serve as the basis for non-credit-granting courses that could be offered through continuing education, which administers courses for UNLV colleges and departments at special places or for special groups.

"If a hospital were to contact us, for instance, and ask that we offer a basic Spanish course for their employees at their facility, we probably could adapt some of the Spanish for medical professions curriculum to suit their particular needs," Gerdes said.

"We would be more than happy to talk to anyone whose organization may have a need for a specialized foreign language course to see if we can help them," he said.

For additional information on the Spanish for law enforcement class or about the UNLV department of foreign languages, call Gerdes at 895-3431.