As an alumnus, I am deeply disturbed by the current budget crisis.
I have listened to the words of Sen. [Stan] Rosenberg, who suggests
that we should soften the plight of the University because the
Legislature should be allowed to feel good about the small gains
they've allowed the University to make. I can't agree. How can
we feel good about the Legislature offering us a hand ... when
the reason we needed one was that they punched us in the gut with
the cuts from the late '80s and early '90s.
I look at the cuts that aren't mentioned ... the Certificate
Program in Religious Studies, which died a silent death after
the central requirement, "World Religions," could no
longer be taught. The only professor to teach it retired. I look
at the Russian and East European Studies Program, the one in which
I got my own degree, and I wonder how it will be offered without
a professor to teach upper-level Russian courses. The answer -
it won't. Like so many other programs it will die.
I look at the proposed mergers on campus ... [dean] Lee Edwards'
plan to merge the language departments with Comparative Literature,
and I can only conclude that she's gone mad. I know language study
has a high cost per student, but why destroy the Comparative Literature
Department, the cornerstone of ALL Gen Eds at the University,
at the same time? It is senseless. Save one or the other, but
don't destroy both in the process.
As an area studies graduate, I cannot support a University without
a genuine commitment to language learning, one of the great hallmarks
of a liberal arts education. I find myself trying to write my
legislator to support my alma mater, only to find that the deans
and administration are destroying everything that made UMass such
a fine institution in the first place. I was a student leader
on campus for nine years, and in six months I've watched every
gain I helped realize for students on campus disappear.
I have advocated for the University with unwavering faith for
years. My faith has wavered. The University depends on alumni,
on people like me, to give it money. President Bulger has even
started a campaign to increase alumni giving. He won't get the
money from me. I love the University, but I can no longer trust
it to make sane decisions about allocations of funding. Don't
destroy the programs we came from and then expect us to give to
the University ... no football team will make it worth it. No
science building will. Until the University is willing to devote
funds to the humanities in a sane manner my wallet will remain
closed.
ASHAVAN DOYON
Class of 2001,
Chicopee
Lee Edwards, dean of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts,
replies:
Whether or not I have "gone mad," is, I suppose, best
left for others to judge. In reference to the specific assessment
offered regarding my efforts to merge Comparative Literature with
a variety of other departments that are also concerned with non-anglophone
languages, literatures, and cultures, I remain convinced that,
far from destroying these programs and their majors, the proposed
merger offers the college and the campus its best opportunity
to preserve these offerings within a comprehensive departmental
setting.
