Letter of Protest to SUNY-Albany
John Schillinger
jschill at AMERICAN.EDU
Wed Oct 6 18:17:42 UTC 2010
I second Miichael's response! Only 7 have signed so far.......
John Schillinger
On Oct 6, 2010, at 2:13 PM, Katz, Michael R. wrote:
> Great idea!
>
> Michael Katz
> ________________________________________
> From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures
> list [SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu] on behalf of Josh Wilson
> [jwilson at SRAS.ORG]
> Sent: Wednesday, October 06, 2010 2:02 PM
> To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
> Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Letter of Protest to SUNY-Albany
>
> http://www.petitiononline.com/SUNY/petition.html
>
> Assuming that Chuck and no one else objects, perhaps we could all
> send this letter this way?
>
> Josh Wilson
> Assistant Director
> The School of Russian and Asian Studies
> Editor in Chief
> Vestnik, The Journal of Russian and Asian Studies
> SRAS.org
> jwilson at sras.org
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures
> list [mailto:SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu] On Behalf Of Chuck Arndt
> Sent: Wednesday, October 06, 2010 7:17 PM
> To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
> Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Letter of Protest to SUNY-Albany
>
> Dear Colleagues:
>
> I want to thank everyone who posted on SEELANGS concerning the
> closing of the French, Russian, and Italian departments at SUNY
> Albany. My colleagues and I here at Union College were shocked and
> dismayed by the news. As neighbors to SUNY Albany, many of us know,
> personally, the modern-language faculty there and how incredibly
> dedicated they are. As the Department Modern Languages and
> Literatures at Union College, we have composed a letter to go both
> to the SUNY administration as well as state senators and assembly
> members.
>
> The letter may undergo some last-minute changes, but I wanted to
> share it with the SEELANGS community while the issue is still
> hot. People can use the letter below as a template, point of
> reference, or do something completely different -"дело ваше"
> как говорится. I hope, however, that all of us will keep
> writing SUNY Albany and bombard the university with a mass of
> feedback, which might cause them to reconsider. Writing state
> senators and other policy-makers is also a great idea, as has been
> pointed out (especially considering that, as has been pointed out,
> elections are coming soon). If anyone has other ideas, please post
> them and I will try to relay them to the rest of our department.
> Because SUNY Albany is the flagship university for such a multi-
> ethnic state, we think this is a battle worth fighting. Please see
> letter below:
>
>
> Заранее блaгодарю!
>
> Charles Arndt
> Visiting Assistant Professor of Russian
> Union College
> Schenectady, NY 12309
>
>
>
>
>
> To the Administration of SUNY-Albany
>
> To local State Senators and Assembly
> Members
>
> To the US Representative from the 21st
> District
>
> To
> Members of the Press
>
>
>
>
>
> We
> at the Modern Languages and Literatures Department at Union College
> would like
> to express our concern and dismay at the decision recently taken up
> by the
> president and his advisory board to eliminate French, Russian, and
> Italian from
> SUNY Albany’s curriculum.
>
>
>
> Not
> only are we concerned for our colleagues at SUNY Albany, whom we
> know to be
> dedicated professionals and committed to their students, but we are
> also
> gravely disturbed by the irrevocable damage this would do to SUNY
> Albany’s
> reputation and the students at SUNY Albany, to their opportunities,
> and to
> their ability to succeed in our global environment. Furthermore,
> we feel the decision
> contradicts SUNY Albany’s stated values of diversity and “giving
> its students
> first-hand international experience” (SUNY’s Strategic Plan 2010,
> p. 19), and
> even its logo (until very recently) of “The World Within Reach.” As
> a major
> institution of learning, SUNY Albany’s reputation could very well
> slide
> downward as a result of being unable to provide its students with
> skills that
> most other comparable universities provide.
> Lastly, the way the decision was reached in no way allowed for
> students
> or faculty to contribute to a decision which affects their futures.
>
>
>
> As
> a university representing a large section of New York State’s
> population, SUNY
> Albany has an obligation to prepare its students for our global
> environment,
> and this naturally includes the ability to speak and understand
> foreign
> languages. According to the Académie
> Francaise, the French-speaking world includes around 60 countries
> worldwide
> (approximately 500 million people).
> French is the international language of trade and business, one of the
> major languages in the European Union, one of the eight UN
> languages, and a
> language spoken on five continents. Moreover, Canada is our
> country’s largest
> trading partner, with French-speaking Quebec (this one province
> alone) our 6th
> largest trading partner.
>
>
>
> As
> for Russian (which is also one of 8 UN languages), the move by SUNY
> Albany’s
> president comes at a time when the US State
> Department and the US Department of Defense both recognize Russian
> as a
> “critical need foreign language” and has begun awarding money
> through the
> Foreign Language Assistance Program to secondary schools across the
> country,
> specifically in order to teach Russian and other “Critical
> Languages.” It appears
> SUNY Albany will not even be in the running regarding this national
> initiative,
> since it will not be able to continue the students’ Russian.
> Furthermore, we
> have been informed by our colleagues that this means there will be
> no Russian
> major anywhere in the SUNY system, a stunning fact for the Empire
> State with
> its internationalist orientation and large Russian population.
>
>
>
> Lastly, for a major university not
> to recognize the importance of Italian language simply seems
> inconceivable in a
> state with such a large Italian-American population, to say nothing
> of the
> enormous influence of Italian culture on this state and the world.
>
>
>
> We believe the actions of president of
> SUNY Albany and his advisory board resulting in the destruction of
> entire
> programs are unprecedented in their rashness and scope. They will
> severely
> diminish their students’ competitiveness in a world that is becoming
> more, and
> not less, integrated. If these moves are
> implemented, SUNY-Albany will be alone nation-wide among major
> universities in
> closing an entire French program, and nowhere in the entire system
> will a
> student be able to have a Russian major.
> We cannot see how SUNY Albany can propose to “send students abroad”
> (SUNY’s Strategic Plan 2010, p. 19), without being embarrassed and
> ashamed that
> they will be some of the few students from a major university unable
> to
> communicate with so many peoples of the world. We hope that the
> president and
> administration at SUNY Albany will reconsider this destructive
> action. We hope that policy-makers in Albany will
> take note of how much less competitive this will make students of
> this great
> state and will work to find a better
> alternative to this unprecedented move.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Respectfully
> Yours,
>
>
>
> Prof.
> Cheikh Ndiaye
>
> Chair,
> Department of Modern Languages and Literatures
>
>
>
> For himself and
> all 25 members of the Department in multiple language programs,
> unanimously
> united
>
>
> --
>
>
>
>
>
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John Schillinger
Emeritus Prof. of Russian
American University
192 High St.
Strasburg VA, 22657
Ph. (540) 465-2828
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