Latitudes

Surprise closures of language programs called “disappointing,” “strange,” and “discouraging”

The department’s National Security Education Program notified Chinese flagship programs at Brigham Young University, San Francisco State University, and the Universities of Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington in March that they would lose all funds. That leaves Arizona State University as the only institution in the western half of the country with one of the government-funded intensive Chinese programs.

A Defense Department spokesman said the closures were a result of a “congressional change in funding for the program in fiscal year 2024.”

In notifying the universities, the department said it had based its decision on “enrollment trends, resource allocation, and strategic planning.” But flagship-center directors said they were shocked by the move and concerned that the cutbacks were concentrated along the critical Pacific Rim.

“It’s pretty surprising we weren’t funded,” said Matthew Christensen, director of Brigham Young’s Chinese flagship. “It is strange.”

The closures are yet another blow to foreign-language instruction in American higher education. In the past year, West Virginia University slashed world languages, eliminating almost three-quarters of its faculty positions and getting rid of all foreign-language majors. The Modern Language Association reported its steepest-ever falloff in foreign-language enrollments, with declines in 12 of the 15 most commonly studied languages, including Chinese.

The language-flagship program was started in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, out of concern by government officials that America lacked proficient speakers in foreign languages important to national security. Its four-year curriculum is intended to get undergraduates to professional-level proficiency through cultural and linguistic immersion, study abroad, and rigorous coursework.

The three initial programs were in Arabic, Chinese, and Korean, with BYU hosting the original Chinese flagship.

Nineteen campus flagship programs continue to provide instruction in Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, and Russian, excluding the five programs that will be shuttered as of May 31. There were previously as many as 30 campus-based language centers.

Program directors said the closure notices were unexpected because past program renewals had typically been routine. “No one saw this coming,” said Charles Egan, who leads San Francisco State’s Chinese flagship.

Christensen, of BYU, said he was dismayed that officials with the funding agency said past accomplishments were not a criterion for renewal. Not only is BYU one of the oldest language flagships, it has a track record of success — 78 percent of program graduates score a “superior” level of proficiency on a commonly used language test, he said.

Although enrollments in the BYU program fell during the pandemic, the numbers had been rebounding, to 30 students this year.

Zhuo Jing-Schmidt, director of the Chinese flagship at the University of Oregon, called the decision “deeply disappointing.” Like BYU, Oregon’s program has a strong and enduring academic record, dating to 2005. Jing-Schmidt said she was “puzzled” that the Defense Department had ignored geographic diversity in its closure choices, particularly on the Asia-facing Pacific Coast.

Although both Oregon and BYU have strong foreign-language departments that will allow current flagship participants to continue to study Chinese, students as part of the program receive funding for a full year of study abroad, as well as immersive instruction. Students get weekly tutoring and attend summertime language programs. Many of the Oregon program’s 60 students are first generation or low income, and it may be difficult for them to access such intensive cultural and language instruction or to reach professional proficiency without financial assistance, Jing-Schmidt said.

The Defense Department allocates grants to colleges of up to $20,000 per student.

Likewise, many of the students in the University of Washington’s Chinese flagship are economically disadvantaged or are students of color, said Victor Balta, a university spokesman.

“Without this funding we are missing out on opportunities to train and prepare future leaders for engagement with expertise about Chinese-speaking regions,” Balta said, adding that closure “signals challenges for our effort to enable American college students to become culturally and linguistically competent when such skills are ever more important.”

At San Francisco State, being awarded a language flagship “was a real feather in our cap for an urban university likes ours,” Egan said, especially when most reside at research-intensive institutions. In addition to the per-student grants, the Defense Department provided program funding and even paid half of the salary for a newly hired tenure-track professor of Chinese at the university over several years.

While Egan said he understood the constraints placed on the department because of congressional budget cuts, he called the decision “very, very discouraging.” Losing a flagship program is a “double whammy” when college foreign-language programs are at risk of funding reductions, he said.

Neither Anais Thomas nor Grace Guertin came to college having studied Chinese. But the two University of Oregon students, both juniors, have attained high proficiency. Through the flagship program, they spent summers in intensive programs at Middlebury College and the University of Rhode Island and in Taiwan. Next year, they will take part in a capstone year, studying at a partner college in Taiwan and doing internships abroad.

The Defense Department will support students already accepted into the capstone program, as well as those on summertime language study. But students who are earlier in their studies won’t get such assistance. One of their classmates is planning to transfer to another college with a language flagship, said Thomas, a Chinese and global-studies double major, but other have “used it as a sign not to continue” studying Chinese.

Guertin, a Chinese and business-administration double major, called the program closures shortsighted. “Our future is going to be with China, whether people like it or not.”

Thomas and Guertin, who are, respectively, president and vice president of Banzhang, the Oregon program’s student-leadership group, started a petition on Change.org, calling for reinstatement of the five flagships scheduled to close at the end of this month. It currently has almost 1,600 signatures. The university is also working with the Oregon congressional delegation to educate lawmakers on the negative impact of the cuts, for the students and for national security.

“We decided we wanted to fight,” Thomas said.

A global view of campus protests

In my last newsletter, I highlighted an analysis about why protests had been largely an American phenomenon. No longer. Demonstrations are spreading globally, to campuses in Belgium, Ireland, Lebanon, and Mexico, among others. Paris’s regional government temporarily suspended funding for Sciences Po, one of France’s most prestigious universities, following pro-Palestinian sit-ins. But in China, the American protests are receiving little coverage in the state media, very likely out of concern among Chinese authorities about potential turmoil on their own campuses.

Sen. Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, said the Biden administration should demand that colleges turn over the names of any foreign students who took part in demonstrations and deport them. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said no student visas have been revoked so far over involvement in campus protests. An Iranian college president has offered free tuition to protesting students expelled from American institutions.

An Israeli graduate student at Columbia University disinvited her parents from her graduation because she believed campus antisemitism made it too dangerous. Columbia has since canceled its main commencement ceremony.

Israeli researchers report a decline in international collaboration since the war began, particularly with institutions in Europe. Meanwhile, every one of Gaza’s 12 universities have been destroyed or severely damaged by fighting, leading to accusations that the Israeli military has deliberately targeted educational facilities. Israeli officials said Hamas was using the campuses for wartime purposes. The United Nations has documented the deaths of at least 5,479 students, 261 teachers, and 95 university professors in Gaza since October.

Top Chinese official warns that the U.S. is unsafe

Xie Feng held a “Safety Journey in the U.S.” event, cautioning about risks to Chinese students and other travelers, including “harassment” and potential deportation when entering the country, anti-Asian discrimination, and government interference with people-to-people exchanges. The U.S. Department of State has said it does not plan to downgrade a travel advisory that has made it difficult for Americans to go to China.

Xie also accused American leaders of “poisoning the public-opinion environment” and harming the relationship between the two countries. The Chinese embassy later posted a pamphlet online with safety tips for navigating the United States.

In a nationwide poll released last week, eight in 10 Americans said they held an unfavorable view of China. According to a Pew Research Center survey, the American public is far more likely to see China as a “competitor” or an “enemy” than as a “partner.”

In other China-related news, a study by the Center for Security and Emerging Technology, at Georgetown University, suggests that the trend of American-educated Chinese scientists returning to China may not be as big a disaster for the United States as previously thought — and it may not be in China’s best interests either.

Returnees are often less productive in their home country than they were in American labs, the study found, while China benefits from the relationships between diaspora scientists working abroad and its own researchers.

Concern has been raised about a reverse brain drain of Chinese academics because of the China Initiative, the federal investigation of academic and economic espionage, and other U.S. government policies seen as hostile to Chinese and Chinese American researchers.

Around the globe

The U.S. Department of Justice has filed a complaint against Study Across the Pond, a Massachusetts company that recruits American students to study in Britain and other countries. The Justice Department accused the company of causing British colleges to submit false claims for federal student aid to the U.S. Department of Education and to violate the federal ban on incentive-based compensation for American students.

Undocumented students and other participants in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program will now qualify for subsidized health-care coverage.

California’s public colleges have agreed how to interpret a law that makes undocumented students eligible for state financial aid and reduced residential tuition rates.

Russian authorities have reshaped education in order to assert more control, purging Western influences, quashing dissent on campus, redrawing curricula to stress patriotism, and rewriting textbooks to glorify Russia and whitewash its Soviet past. These are the most sweeping changes to schooling since the 1930s, The Washington Post writes as part of its series on how President Vladimir Putin is transforming Russia and cementing his authoritarian power.

Germany’s research ministry will probe academic collaborations with China after several universities were found to have been in contact with and, in one case, signed a contract with alleged Chinese spies.

British academic researchers working with sensitive technologies will be required to undergo security screening.

A British parliamentary committee is investigating colleges’ reliance on international students and is examining enrollment trends, foreign students’ effect on higher-education funding, and their impact on domestic admissions.

The Canadian government has limited international students to working 24 hours a week off campus, beginning with the next academic year. The decision reverses a Covid-era policy that permitted foreign students to work full time to meet labor shortages.

Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, one of the top candidates for Mexico’s presidency, would be the first woman and first researcher to lead the country, but there are concerns among scientists and academics about what her election would mean for science policy.

President Javier Milei of Argentina said he has no plans to close or defund state universities, despite public worries.

Student-visa denials have skyrocketed as Australia seeks to crack down on foreigners posing as students to come to the country to work. Educators say the new restrictions are also hindering genuine students and hurting college finances.

Some Chinese colleges reportedly warned students against or banned them from traveling on their own during the May Day holiday.

The State Department has announced this year’s recipients of the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship, which expands access to study abroad.

And finally …

Have you been watching Shōgun, the mini-series about 1600s Japan? I’m no television critic, (though, two thumbs up) but I’ve been fascinated by its commitment to cultural and historical accuracy. Case in point, language. Translation and interpretation are major themes of the show, and the majority of the dialogue is in Japanese. But not just any old Japanese: American writers wrote the script, which was translated by a team in Japan. It then went to linguists to make sure the language was appropriate to Edo-period Japan. The creators get into this aspect of the production, and much more, in a fun, behind-the-scenes podcast.

Thanks for reading. I always welcome your feedback and ideas for future reporting, so drop me a line at karin.fischer@chronicle.com. You can also connect with me on X or LinkedIn. If you like this newsletter, please share it with colleagues and friends. They can sign up here.