Disappearing Languages at Albany - Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed, 4 octobre 2010

The State University of New York at Albany’s motto is "the world within reach." But language faculty members are questioning the university’s commitment to such a vision after being told Friday that the university was ending all admissions to programs in French, Italian, Russian and classics, leaving only Spanish left in the language department once current students graduate. The theater department is also being eliminated.

While the last two years have seen many language departments threatened or eliminated, faculty members at Albany said they were stunned that so many languages were being eliminated at the same time and that this was happening at a doctoral university that has prided itself on an international vision. The French program extends to the doctoral level while all the other programs have undergraduate majors as well as many students who take language courses as part of general education but who do not major.

Ten tenured faculty members in language programs were told Friday that they would have two years of employment in which to help current students finish their degrees, but that they would then be out of their jobs, according to several who were at the meeting. About 20 adjuncts and several others on the tenure track but not tenured are also at risk of losing their jobs, potentially even earlier, although details are not available.

A university spokeswoman, asked about the details of faculty jobs, said that "no faculty are losing their jobs this year and at this stage it’s too early to determine when faculty positions will actually be impacted," but those who were at the briefing for the dropped departments Friday said that they were told explicitly that their jobs would be eliminated. The spokeswoman, however, said that the meeting Friday was "the beginning of a conversation about the future," without any decisions about faculty jobs.

"We were told [of the eliminations] without any hint" in advance of any concern about the programs, said Jean-François Brière, a professor of French studies and chair of the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures. Brière, who has taught at the university since 1979, said that even in the context of budget cuts this year, he was shocked. "No other university of the caliber and size" of Albany has done this, he said.

George M. Philip, Albany’s president, cited deep, repeated budget cuts as requiring the university to move beyond across-the-board cuts or identifying one-time savings.

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