School Meeting

"The University of Maine administration is planning on eliminating a bachelors degree in languages this year and for the upcoming future." Simple words from one of the faculty in the Spanish Department spoken yesterday, March 24th at a meeting. A few students and I gathered together with some faculty and other members of the World Languages department to protest against not being able to complete a bachelors degree in languages. It is extremely frustrating to many individuals at this school, especially those who were planning on majoring in a language and those who were involved in majors that include a language. The school administration seems to think it is a waste of money and not a top interest for students at the University of Maine.

During the meeting, my Spanish professor clearly stated, "Do you realize that if the University of Maine abolishes the major in a language, we would be the only school in the United States that does not allow students to have that opportunity?" Many language students in the School of Arts and Sciences are planning on doing the best they can to convince the administration to not make such an inconvenient and problematic decision.

Another issue discussed in the meeting was that the administration is thinking of bringing new languages that most schools do not offer like Chinese and Arabic. Both languages seem interesting and exciting to learn and would be very helpful for the future, but right now the Spanish language is ranked the number two language spoken in the world and it would be extremely unreasonable to not give UMaine students the opportunity to use it. Other than Spanish, French and German are another two languages that are spoken in many parts of the world and also should not be banned.

In general, the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences is one of UMaine's most popular schools, with a high population of students and a big portion of those students are interested in the study of languages, myself being one of them. I am willing to do anything and continue attending meetings to encourage the administration of our school to continue the bachelor degree in Modern Languages.