I just heard the news that yet another university mortally afraid of the word “foreign” has renamed its foreign languages department into “International Languages and Literatures Department.” Mind you, English has a separate department, so it doesn’t fall under “international languages.”
In other news, a tenure-line at our department has been cancelled. In the meanwhile, there is insistent talk that it isn’t enough to have a single “Diversity and Multiculturalism Officer” on campus. Now there are rumors we will have an entire “Diversity and Multiculturalism Center.” Of course, a group of stupid, monolingual bureaucrats that will populate said center will do SO much more to promote diversity and multuculturalism on campus than an actual professor who can teach actual courses about other cultures.
Clarissa's Blog 
I don’t understand. What is the supposed difference between “foreign” and “international”? Why is it important for them to rename, and to you – to keep?
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It does bother me immensely that all of this effort and expense are dedicated to the goal of reaffirming the vision of me as tragically deficient because of where I was born.
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This is my view. “Inter” as a prefix always denotes something that connects two different entities. So it makes sense to say international relations or international politics etc. To me it’s nonsensical to talk about international languages because those would be languages connecting nations — if you will, English is THE international language, as it’s the language most universally used for communication between members of different nations! 🙂
Also, I don’t like that we call non-American students international students, but it’s a very common term and one could perhaps argue that it makes sense since for a student from another country it’s as if they are a student between two nations or what have you…
But international languages they way it’s used in the department title is just nonsensical. Foreign languages denotes languages other than the majority language of the country, I don’t see why that’s a problem.
My guess is that the word “foreign” has a negative connotation and that’s why the administration wants to do away with it…
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“if you will, English is THE international language, as it’s the language most universally used for communication between members of different nations!”
– That’s my point exactly.
“My guess is that the word “foreign” has a negative connotation and that’s why the administration wants to do away with it…”
– The administration has no stake in it. This is some really strange PC obsession of actual faculty members who, for some unfathomable reason, are trying to save foreigners like me from non-existent hurt implied in the word “foreign.” This is the prime example of American narcissism at play. We, the foreigners, are assumed to be completely heart-broken and deeply miserable because of our foreignness and for the sake of politeness this crushing disability is not mentioned in polite society.
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“My guess is that the word “foreign” has a negative connotation and that’s why the administration wants to do away with it…”
Yep. The bad part is that it’s like disabled/handicapped/crippled, the negative connotation is to the condition itself so a new term doesn’t work for that long.
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“The bad part is that it’s like disabled/handicapped/crippled, the negative connotation is to the condition itself so a new term doesn’t work for that long.”
– Good analogy. The people who are terrified of the word “foreign” do, indeed, see anybody who is not American as irreparably damaged or crippled. Not that they will ever recognize that this is what’s driving their actions.
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The people who are terrified of the word “foreign” do, indeed, see anybody who is not American as irreparably damaged or crippled”
Lost is the word, look back at Americanism as a religion. Foreigners lose (most of) their taint by becoming converts/immigrants.
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“My guess is that the word “foreign” has a negative connotation and that’s why the administration wants to do away with it…”
– This is exactly what’s going on. Administration/professors/that dude, everyone is obsessed with PC.
In regards of “Diversity and Multiculturalism Officer” on campus, his/her job will be to make sure that when you walk on campus it won’t look too lily-white. So that future students, their parents, and of utter importance, possible donors will see students from all over the world.
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I was thinking the DAMO was more about preventing lawsuits.
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These “officers” don;t have any power to bring students from other countries to campus. They don’t have any knowledge or power to do absolutely anything whatsoever. Just another bunch of useless dumb paper pushers.
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“I was thinking the DAMO was more about preventing lawsuits.”
– I think preventing lawsuits equals PC obsession, but the main reason is still the money.
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If anybody cared about money, they’d stop hiring these expensive useless bureaucrats who do nothing at all and cannot be fired for any infraction.
If only, if only any of these decisions were actually motivated by money.
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WE have faced this nonsense since the 60’s, it isn’t just racism, female sexism is just as ugly. All of them were worse than useless, they actually hurt innocent people. Still do.
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These decisions are really motivated by money.
Starting from the top, universities hire bureaucrats, from senior to entry level positions. They don’t care about quality of education or academic research. They are in it for themselves. They will do anything legal to protect their salaries, benefits and the right to do nothing.
In this regard, education and medical bureaucrats are very similar.
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I’m not disputing what you say because it’s all true. However, there is another dimension to the situation. Just yesterday I read a story about the people who are pressuring the administration into creating the stupid Multiculturalism center. The administration is resisting.
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Then you’ve got true professionals in your administration.
Clarissa, how is your colleague doing, the one who was attacked?
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The Foucauldian in me really wants to see this as the administration at your university desperately trying to avoid admitting to themselves that they’re creating an Other, while making it even more obvious that that’s exactly what they’re reinforcing through these changes. 🙂
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Sorry, but what do you mean by “tenure-line has been cancelled”?
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A tenured colleague left and instead of declaring a search to fill the position, the position was eliminated. We had 10 tenure lines at the department, now we have 9.
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Back in the 70s (when I was in college the first time), the foreign language department at the university I attended was “Modern Languages”; I guess they chose this since it encompassed a fairly large section of TEFL.
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We considered Modern Languages but we do have Latin and Ancient Greek, so that idea is out.
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A committee at my university substantially revised general education requirements a few years back and made a bunch of changes including changing the foreign language requirement to the world languages requirement. All department chairs solicited feedback on the new gen ed system and reported their departments’ concerns back to the committee at a big meeting. There were lots of concerns about the various changes, but only four departments objected to the name change for the foreign language requirement; Spanish, French, German, and Asian languages. The deanlet in charge of the whole thing was reportedly flabbergasted because he was sure that the foreign language departments would be thrilled to lose the negative “foreign” label.
In the end, the name change went through despite objections from four of the six departments that offered courses in the area. Classics didn’t care and American Sign Language thought it was a good idea because American Sign Language isn’t foreign.
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Great story! I wish I at least had my foreign language colleagues on my side but I don’t. 😦
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