UTSC lecturers are rallying against the cancellation of most foreign language courses starting next semester. A UTSC spokesperson said the final decision has not been made. Instructors, meanwhile, are recruiting student support through a Facebook group. Supporters are circulating a petition on campus. Dean and VP academic Rick Halpern has invited students to a discussion on Monday, March 29, from 12 to 1 p.m. at AA 160.
Lecturers say their department heads told them that all Arabic, Tamil, Japanese, Sanskrit, and Latin courses will be cancelled. Beginner and intermediate French courses will be suspended in 2011-2012, as will Spanish courses.
“[Administrators are] assessing how well the language courses match the overall academic programs,” said UTSC spokesperson Laura Matthews. She said no final decisions have been made to cancel courses.
Eric Spigel, who teaches Japanese, said that humanities department chair Bill Bowen called professors individually into his office to give them the “shocking news” on Monday, March 15. “He said, ‘There is no easy way to say this, [most] language courses will be terminated immediately,’” said Spigel.
“The timing is suspicious,” Spigel added, noting that the news comes near the end of the winter semester, a busy time for both students and professors. He also said there were no previous warnings and that it is now too late for sessional lecturers to find new summer jobs.
Hindi and Mandarin are the only foreign language courses on the summer 2010 course timetable. For Mandarin, the courses taught by sessional instructors have been cancelled for the summer. Timetables for 2010-2011 fall and winter courses have not yet been released.
A Facebook group called “Save Language Courses @ UTSC,” created by Spanish professor Isolde Dyson, has 802 members as of press time. Students and professors have started circulating a petition on campus to keep offering language courses.
Aisha Khaja, the Scarborough Campus Students’ Union’s VP academics, said she didn’t know courses would be cancelled. “I have been aware that the department of humanities has been doing an external review,” said Khaja in an email to The Varsity. “However, at the Programs and Curriculum Committee, in which I serve as a member, this item of discussion never came up.”
‘Not a priority’
In an email response to a student, UTSC dean and VP academic Rick Halpern said recent external reviews showed that most language courses are not closely related to any academic program and that most students only take one or two introductory language courses.
“Since language teaching is not currently on the list of academic priorities of UTSC, we have decided to review our language offerings to find a way that these can be closely tied to one or more academic programs,” wrote Halpern. The email also said language expansion at UTSC was a pilot project and that language teaching costs must be assessed against “other pressing academic needs.”
“The letter is utter bullshit,” said Tamara Al-Kasey, a Spanish professor who has resigned her post as former languages coordinator. “There have been absolutely no external reviews on the language courses,” she said, adding that sparing only Hindi and Mandarin because of their affiliation with Global Asian Studies does not make sense because Tamil, Japanese, Sanskrit are Asian languages as well.
Al-Kasey said she never knew foreign languages at UTSC were pilot projects. She wrote on Facebook that she resigned as languages coordinator after she was not consulted about the language restructuring.
Neither Halpern nor John Scherk, the vice-dean academic, could be reached for comment.
‘So much for world-class’
Students told The Varsity they were disappointed. Shobiya Sivanathan, a third-year biology and psychology major, is taking a Tamil course and planned on taking more. “This is the first time that I am actually learning the language,” she said, after previous efforts failed. “There are so many Tamil students in UTSC and [taking Tamil courses] is a way of getting into our culture.”
“So much for world-class,” said fourth-year student Anne Hardy-Henry, referring to the campaign for the recently passed Pan Am sports facility levy, which boasted, “You deserve world class.” Lecturers received notification of language courses cancelations on March 15, in the midst of campaigning for the Pan Am athletic facility levy. “What happened to world-class education?” asked Hardy-Henry.
