Letter of Protest to SUNY-Albany
Josh Wilson
jwilson at SRAS.ORG
Wed Oct 6 19:12:10 UTC 2010
Have actually been poking at that site for a while trying to figure out if
there is something in the settings that can change that. Have not found it
yet.
That said, I can click a button and download all these to an excel form (or
cut and paste elsewhere) - they have also a service where they print out a
copy of the petition and names and mail it wherever you want...
I'll keep poking as well...
Currently at 75... about one sig a minute since it was posted...
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 E Wayles Browne
Sent: Wednesday, October 06, 2010 10:57 PM
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Letter of Protest to SUNY-Albany
Thanks to Josh for starting the petition. I have signed it too. There are
now 57 signatures. But the site doesn’t show who they are!! How are we
going to make an impression on the SUNY authorities with a mere number and
no names?
Yours,
--
Wayles Browne, Assoc. Prof. of Linguistics
Department of Linguistics
Morrill Hall 220, Cornell University
Ithaca, New York 14853, U.S.A.
tel. 607-255-0712 (o), 607-273-3009 (h)
fax 607-255-2044 (write FOR W. BROWNE)
e-mail ewb2 at cornell.edu
________________________________
From: Josh Wilson <jwilson at SRAS.ORG>
Reply-To: "SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list"
<SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu>
Date: Wed, 6 Oct 2010 14:02:15 -0400
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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