To the Editor:
In the March 25 issue of The Poly, Leslie Vorce ’11 wrote a letter to the editor expressing her views on the sudden absence of foreign language and writing courses at RPI. As a student who has traveled abroad for language education as well as taken creative writing classes in high school, I feel that there is much to be gained from formal education in these areas.
Allow me to explain. Professor Tong Shen, who teaches Chinese, is more than just a language professor. He is also a linguist and someone with more to offer than a simple understanding of Mandarin. Having taken three semesters of Chinese here, I have done more than add to my vocabulary and grammar. I have also learned about the history behind the language and interesting facets of the subject that some piece of software like Rosetta Stone could never teach me. Similarly, professors like Julie Gutmann give students the opportunity to enjoy the help of a professional writer in their education. Unless you are a particularly talented writer, no self-education can replace a professor, especially someone like Gutmann, who helps students develop writing skills that may not come naturally.
What’s worse, the administration has not given any concrete plan for allowing students to continue studying in these areas. RPI officials have said that students may study at partner institutions in the Hudson Mohawk Association, including nearby Russell Sage College and SUNY Albany. However, this brings up the issue of transportation and scheduling. The schools around here do not necessarily follow the same daily class schedule as RPI. The other problem is that many students do not have reliable methods of transportation. Will RPI provide shuttles to these campuses for the benefit of its own students?
Even peer institutions like Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Rochester Institute of Technology, Texas A&M University, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Georgia Institute of Technology, and Carnegie Mellon University have language and writing programs. The point isn’t that we need language and writing courses so we can learn how to communicate or write; we need language and writing courses because they are just as important as any other humanities, arts, and social sciences course being offered here. When you let four professors go that take entire language and writing programs with them, it is a little less than bearable.
The biggest threat to the language program, however, is the student body itself. How many students remember when the Institute let the German language program die? That was a mere three years ago, in May 2006. Yes, the students protested, but after a while completely forgot about it. What will be different this time around? In just as short a time, students may soon forget the pain of losing integral parts of the RPI humanities program. We cannot let this happen. Therefore, I call students to utilize the only thing we truly control: the Rensselaer Union. With a budget of $1.2 million, it would not be hard for students to bring in paid instructors on a regular basis to teach languages or host classes and workshops in creative writing.
This is a situation we have more control over than we give ourselves credit for. So write letters to the administration and push them to bring back what we’ve lost. But also work together to fill the void in the meantime. Create a foreign languages club or writing club. Do whatever is necessary to keep this problem from suffering the same fate as the loss of the German language offering.
Michael Doo
MATH ’10
