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French programs across New York are in trouble!  We need to stand together and not let this happen.  I trust that I can count on the New York in French community for support.

         YOU CAN HELP BY SIGNING THE PETITION:

                    http://www.petitiononline.com/SUNY/petition.html 

Thank you!

-Laura Martin

Below is a letter from one of the professors of SUNY Albany's French Department explaining the dire situation:

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Today the seven members of the French faculty at SUNY--Albany (all tenured)  were informed that by presidential decision, ostensibly for budgetary reasons, the French program has been "deactivated" at all levels (BA, MA, PhD), as have BA programs in Russian and Italian. The only foreign language program unaffected is Spanish. The primary criterion used in making the decision was undergrad majors-to-faculty ratio. We were told that tenured faculty in French, Russian, and Italian will be kept on long enough for our students to finish their degrees--meaning three years at the outside. Senoir faculty are being encouraged to take early retirement. The rest of us are being urged to "pursue our careers elsewhere," as our Provost put it.

Needless to say, the decision is personally devastating to those of us affected, but it is also symptomatic of the ongoing devaluation of foreign-language and other humanities program in universities across the United States. I'm writing to ask for your help in spreading the word about this decision as widely as possible and in generating as much negative media publicity as possible against SUNY--Albany and the SUNY system in its entirety.

There is much background to add about how this decision was reached and implemented, too much for me to explain fully here. Suffice it to say that the disappearance of French, Italian, and Russian has resulted from an almost complete lack of leadership at the Albany campus and in the SUNY system. Our president, a former state pension fund manager, holds an MBA as his highest degree, has never held a college or university teaching position, and has never engaged in any kind of scholarship.

More disturbing still, due process was not followed in the decision-making process. The affected programs were not consulted or given the opportunity to propose money-saving reforms. Our Dean and Provost simply hand-selected an advisory committee to rubber stamp the president's decision. The legalities of the situation remain to be discussed with our union, UUP, but in the meantime I welcome any advice you may have.


best,

Brett

Brett Bowles
Associate Professor of French Studies
French Graduate Program Director
State University of New York, Albany
bbowles@albany.edu< HYPERLINK "mailto:bbowles@albany.edu"