FYI: Budget Cuts at University of Florida Affect Language Programs

Author:	Jessi Aaron
Linguistic Field(s):	Not Applicable
FYI Body:	Dear fellow linguists, As some of you may have heard, the University of Florida has recently taken $47 million in cuts. An article on this is in the Chronicle, at: http://chronicle.com/news/article/4435/u-of-florida-plans-layoffs-and-enrollment-cuts-as-state-funds-fall . The President's plan for cuts falls disproportionately heavily on the Humanities, in particular on the language programs. As a linguist in Romance Languages (Spanish), I fear that these proposed cuts will permanently damage our ability to provide quality education in linguistics, especially for those interested in languages other than English. The proposed cuts include: Elimination of PhD program in French Elimination of PhD program in German Elimination of PhD program in Philosophy Elimination of language instruction in Vietnamese and Korean The current departments of African & Asian Languages and Literatures, Germanic & Slavic Studies and Romance Languages and Literatures will be reformulated into a Department of Modern Foreign Languages and a Department of Spanish Language and Literature Many members of the humanities faculty are concerned with the elimination of the PhD programs in particular. In the case of French, it is one of few in the nation to offer a French linguistics track at the PhD level, and this will be lost. Also lost will be the possibility for doctoral students interested in cross-linguistic Romance to benefit from collaboration with both Spanish and French faculty. Many of us are also dismayed by the bundling of all modern languages--except Spanish--into one department, which sends a message to students that languages are not as diverse or as important as we all know them to be. Many feel that the faculty and chairs were not adequately consulted (see http://www.gainesville.com/article/20080509/NEWS/805090323/0/FRONTPAGE ), and are asking for support from the professional community to provide evidence that such cuts are damaging to UF's reputation and therefore detrimental to the long-term health of UF as an institution of higher education. We would like the time to help come up with other solutions. If you would like to comment on these cuts, please visit http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/antes/Comments%20French%20PhD.html . Thank you for your support, Jessi Elana Aaron Assistant Professor, Spanish Linguistics Romance Languages and Literatures University of Florida