Letter of Protest to SUNY-Albany
Mikhail Palatnik
palatnik at ARTSCI.WUSTL.EDU
Wed Oct 6 22:50:59 UTC 2010
I am number 428.
Mikhail Palatnik
Washington University St. Louis
Krystyna Steiger wrote:
> Dear fellow SEELANGERS,
> I've just signed as #364
> thanks, and best wishes to all,
> Krystyna
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chuck Arndt" <chuckarndt at YAHOO.COM>
> To: <SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu>
> Sent: Wednesday, October 06, 2010 5:12 PM
> Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Letter of Protest to SUNY-Albany
>
>
> Dear SEELANGERS:
>
> Wow! Big thanks to Josh Wilson and everyone who has signed so far!
> What a great idea! I signed - I'm number 315 or 316.
>
> Very Sincerely Yours,
>
>
> Charles Arndt
>
> --- On Wed, 10/6/10, Josh Wilson <jwilson at SRAS.ORG> wrote:
>
> From: Josh Wilson <jwilson at SRAS.ORG>
> Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Letter of Protest to SUNY-Albany
> To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
> Date: Wednesday, October 6, 2010, 2:02 PM
>
> 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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