Sunday, March 18, 2012

NY Times Sunday Review

The Benefits of Bilingualism:  "Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age."

Friday, November 4, 2011

Shout out from the NY Times!

"Still, there is a bread-and-circuses aspect about football that detracts from more urgent concerns at L.S.U. The faculty has gone three years without raises. State budget cuts have sliced through fat into muscle. An outcry would ensue if the football team was underfinanced. But gutting of the foreign language department generates only a comparative whisper." NY Times, November 3, 2011

Friday, December 10, 2010

Chancellor Martin's Grade for Fall 2010

Had Chancellor Martin attended the Faculty Senate meeting on December 8, the following statement would have been delivered:

"Chancellor Martin, you have chosen to delegate a response to the letters of the AAUP. You have also chosen to postpone a response to the Faculty Senate Resolution 10-14.1. To my students I would say, “This is bad time management and called procrastination.”

Chancellor Martin, you have also chosen to dismantle the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures (and you have accepted responsibility). With this decision, you have not only irrevocably damaged the university as a whole but also the future of students. My students I would ask, “Are you sure that you can live with this decision?”

Chancellor Martin, you have not been a good steward of what has been entrusted to you, neither economically nor academically nor ethically. Ironically, the cost for a team a clever attorneys to present to you a way to fire 14 instructors, exceeds in all likelihood not only the cost of keeping the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures in tact but also retain the FLXIV for another semester. To my students I would say, “Take a course in economics and pay attention to cost/effect.”

Chancellor Martin, you have proven that you have the power to take the ‘human’ out of ‘Humanities’. You have also proven that you have the power to fire 14 foreign language instructors. However, you will never have the power to diminish the importance of foreign languages.

For all your actions or non-actions, you receive an F."

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Official Statement to the Faculty Senate

This statement was presented at the Faculty Senate meeting on December 8:

"On behalf of the Foreign Language XIV, I express our sincerest thanks for the efforts of the LSU Chapter and the National Office of the AAUP. It was the right thing to do. I also thank the members of the Faculty Senate for their unanimous vote in favor of Resolution 10-14.1. It was the right thing to do. In fact, this vote has been your finest moment this semester. A special thanks to Dr. Homberger, who worked so hard to draft the resolution and who argued passionately and effectively in favor of the resolution. You are an inspiration to all who take academia seriously. It was the right thing to do. In my book, you receive an A+.

I leave you with the following meditation by Marcus Aurelius….

Very often an unjust act is done by not doing something, 
not only by doing something.

Good luck to all of you."

Chancellor's Response to Faculty Senate Resolution 10-14.1

Update:  LSU General Counsel confirmed in an email dated 12/9 that the Board of Supervisors has never approved action involving foreign language instructors at LSU, calling the veracity of the Chancellor's statement below into question.