Hear, hear!

[branchandroot]

I think I'm in love.

Not least because my own uni is currently having this debate and people really are eyeballing the foreign language departments in a very worrying way.

Comments

[ldybastet]

Haha, wonderfully and eloquently put. :) That letter made me laugh several times.

[branchandroot]

Isn't that just great? It's so dead on, and goodness knows this is exactly what I tell my /students/ they're in my classes for. Now if only the administration would listen...

[silv_magiccraft]

That was fun to read. It made me laugh. Thanks for pointing it out, because I would never have gotten a chance to read it otherwise.

-Silv

[branchandroot]

My pleasure!

[annotated_em]

*________*

A masterpiece.

[branchandroot]

It totally is.

[staranise]

Oh, yes.

One of the things I have loved about university is the fact that only 50% of my courses have to be from my faculty, and only 25% of them have to be in my major. To me, a course catalog is like candy because I get to pick from so many fields.

[branchandroot]

And you will come out of it knowing how to /think/, which skill I'd say the world needs a whole lot.

[staranise]

Thinking I first learned taking International Baccalaureate, which includes epistemology as a fundamental part of the course of study.

[krait]

OH YES THIS!

It used to drive me crazy when my History or Biology classes assigned papers where "spelling/grammar won't be counted."

Does it just... completely escape those professors that it doesn't matter if you've just cured cancer, no one will know or be able to repeat your results if your paper looks like it was typewritten in the dark by a four-year-old? Or if it's excluded from online journal search results because nobody does searches for "Cure Cancar"?

I just. I don't even. *throws up hands!* I can't even imagine the shortsightedness of someone who would throw out the writing completely!

[branchandroot]

For serious. Communication, people, it doesn't happen by magic!

[aldanise]

Okay, I know this totally isn't the point (and I'm completely on the humanities are important bandwagon anyway), but cutting Chinese? What is he, fricking nuts? Raise your hand if you don't want America-trained Chinese-speakers to exist. Right, no hands. That's what I thought.

And before anyone says that you can have language classes without a department, the whole point of a language department is that it teaches nonverbal communication (i.e., culture), as well as words.

*fumes at the idiocy*

[branchandroot]

I know, you'd think that would be obvious, wouldn't you?

[7veils]

Thanks for that link. *promptly forwards it to contacts who need the ammo*

[branchandroot]

*thumbs up* Yeah, this one is going out to the faculty list.

[stormyseasons]

Oh wow. Oh yes. The humanities are definitely underrated and shouldn't be chopped just for that sort of paper excuse. *is confused by the assertion that the humanities classes are undersubscribed. did her undergrad years in the Arts faculty of a local university, and it was the largest faculty in the entire university. Larger than the science or engineering faculty, in terms of sheer volume of students.... *

[branchandroot]

I know, our university is like that too! The arts classes are always the ones the fill up first.

[stormyseasons]

Makes no budget sense to chop the humanities classes like that. It's not like most of them need expensive lab equipment.And one lecturer can teach many many students, because equipment isn't really a limiting factor.... The unsubsidized fees, in the university I attended, were rather stark in showing who was getting charged more for more equipment and personal instruction and such.

[harrellj.livejournal.com]

Wow, that kind of thinking actually would have made me choose not to go to that school. I went to college undecided of what my major was going to be, and so chose a school that had a large range of degrees that it offered so I wouldn't have to switch schools once I knew what I wanted to do. I just... can't really fathom why someone would get rid of such a fundamental part of going to a liberal arts school.

Also, those required courses that everyone has to take? Gave me a basic idea of what would be expected of me if I continued into a major from that field. I have a comp sci degree with a Spanish minor because I fell in love with my required computer class (Spanish was because I only had to take 3 classes to get that minor thanks to a combination of factors).

[branchandroot]

Exactly. If SUNY Albany really does do this, they /will/ cease to be a university.