Letter of Protest to SUNY-Albany
Michele A. Berdy
maberdy at GMAIL.COM
Wed Oct 6 18:23:50 UTC 2010
Now up to 22...
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Schillinger" <jschill at AMERICAN.EDU>
To: <SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, October 06, 2010 10:17 PM
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Letter of Protest to SUNY-Albany
>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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