Rally pictures

Did you or your friends take pictures at the rally? Please post pictures on the new Flickr group!


Group Name: Save East Asian Languages and Korean Studies Group Link: http://www.flickr.com/groups/754369@N21/

Dean's Message about Language Funding

The Dean of Arts & Humanities in the College of Letters and Science, Janet Broughton, has issued a statement on language instruction funding: "Dean's Message About Funding for Language Instruction".

Meeting Saturday, 5/10 11am

For those of you who can make it during finals studies, let's meet today (Saturday) for a brunch working meeting and a report- back at Cafe Med on Telegraph at 11 a.m. We'll talk about fundraising and future actions. All are welcome!

Next steps, media, fundraising

Thank you to everyone who made yesterday's rally such a success! Word is really getting out, and below we've assembled several of the stories we've seen so far. These will be added to a column on the right side of the blog. Please let us know if you've seen others:

• U.S. News and World Report, The Paper Trail, 5/9: "Berkeley Students Rally Against Asian Language Cuts"
  
• Chronicle of Higher Education blog, 5/8: "Budget Crisis Prompts Berkeley to Halve its Offerings in East Asian Studies"
• Korea Daily News SF, 5/8: "UC 버클리 예산 삭감 반대 시위"
  
• Daily Cal article, 5/7: "Language Cuts Spur Student Protest"
• Contra Costa Times, 5/6: "UC students face fee hikes and class cuts"
• Korea Times SF, 5/6: "UC 버믈리 '한국어과 구하기'"
• Angry Asian Man post, 5/5: "save east asian languages and korean studies at berkeley"
• Korean Drama Group Blog 한국 무 리 forums, 5/1: "Korean Studies to be Cut at UC Berkeley"
  

We'll soon be moving to try to help fund-raise for the short term and the long term for Korean Studies and East Asian Languages at Berkeley. News will be coming VERY soon about this. We are hopeful that we can restore this fall's classes and help our beloved sonsaengnims!

Stay tuned...

Understanding California's School Funding Crisis

RALLY AT NOON TODAY!!

Please come to Sproul Plaza today at noon to protest the extreme budget cuts planned for Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Tagalog, Tamil, Hindi, Thai, and other languages at UC Berkeley!! Tell your friends!

Press conference today -- a success!

Thank you to everyone who participated and helped with our press conference this morning. Speeches were made by Christine Hong, Claire Kramsch, Jeff Shieh and Sarah Cho attesting to the dire budgetary situation faced by Korean Studies and East Asian language instruction at Berkeley; announcements were also made about similar predicaments faced by students of Tagalog, Tamil, Urdu, Thai and other languages in the South & Southeast Asian Studies.

Please see the letter posted by Jeff Shieh on the UCB Japanese Department's website:

• http://japanese.berkeley.edu/index_body.html
  

Please comment to this post or send email to savekoreanstudies@gmail.com if you are aware of additional stories as they become available.

This blog will be updated soon. In the meantime, please tell your friends and get ready to come out for the RALLY AT SPROUL PLAZA, 12 NOON TOMORROW.

Today's Daily Cal

If you haven't already, be sure to check out the article in today's Daily Cal that features the work of Berkeley students to change the fate of languages in the East Asian Languages & Cultures department: "Departments Brace for Next Year's Funding Cuts".

Student testimonials--please read!

Many students impacted by the budget cuts have written testimonials that express how the cuts affect them personally.

If you're not sure how much these budget cuts really matter, read these testimonials; if you have friends who don't particularly care about the budget cuts, make them read these testimonials. Nothing we can say about the cuts expresses their impact as viscerally and persuasively as the stories these students are living.

A sample follows; read the rest here.

I am currently taking Korean 10BX and it has been a vital part of my experience at Cal. Coming to Cal, I learned to recognize the histories / herstories of my fellow brothers, sisters, ancestors, students, and parents. Learning where I've come from and my roots has helped me appreciate and understand, not only my culture, but the cultures and roots of others as well. It is vital that we keep these language programs because it is necessary to understanding each other's cultures. To better understand each other, we need cross-cultural solidarity and awareness, cutting these language programs would be retroactive and is very offensive. If Cal prides itself on diversity and culture, then why are languages being cut?
-- Allen Youngjun Cho, Political Economy of Industrial Societies major


Ever since I was young, I had a great sense of pride in my Chinese heritage, and, therefore, was rather ashamed that I could not write or speak the language fluently. I was excited to come to Cal so that I could finally learn the language that, up until my generation, everyone in my family spoke, but now this happens. Even though as a Chinese minor I will still be able to take Chinese classes, If these budget cuts follow through they will not only affect the quality of education that I will receive, but will also limit what I can learn about my culture & heritage and about me. I did NOT come to Cal for a limited education! Taking Chinese classes in Berkeley is literally my last chance to attain my childhood goal, and it is an opportunity I will not let go without a fight.
-- Siu-Wei Huang, Molecular Environmental Biology major


Despite being in the College of Engineering, I was able to take Japanese language classes (1A through 102) for all of my four years at Berkeley, and I can say without the slightest exaggeration that being able to do so completely changed my life. I studied a year of Japanese in high school, fell in love with the language, continued it at Berkeley, which led to a semester abroad, one thing led to another, and my passion for the language ended up surpassing my interest in my major. I now find myself entering a master's program in translation and interpretation this fall, in preparation for a career in said field. I would think it a great tragedy should future Berkeley students be denied the same opportunity that I had.
-- Jonathan Michaels, Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, Class of 2006

Tuesday night poster-making!!

Everyone who can help, please come to help make posters for the press conference on Wednesday and rally on Thursday.

WHEN: Drop-in anytime after 8pm, Tuesday night
WHERE: APR room or 3rd floor lounge, Unit 1
BRING: Markers & any other supplies you have. YOURSELF AND YOUR FRIENDS! :)

Hardboiled post

Check out Hardboiled's blog posting today on the pending 50% cuts to Berkeley's East Asian Language department!

Please participate - Mass email campaign

We need to flood the email boxes of those people (listed below) who make up the chain of command relative to EALC's budget cuts. They are the ones who interpreted Schwarzenegger's budget cuts to mean that the ax would fall particularly heavily on EALC (and other departments that rely heavily on Temporary Academic Staff funding to carry their teaching load). Let's use the power of mass-email to alert them to the folly of their decision. The individual contact information for these people is as follows (group email, for the sake of convenience, provided below):

Chancellor Robert Birgeneau (Why contact him? He's the top dog.)
Phone 642-7464
Email: chancellor@berkeley.edu

Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost George Breslauer (Why? He's directly below Birgeneau and a crucial link in the chain of command.)
Phone 642-1961
Email: bresl@berkeley.edu

Prof. Mark A. Richards, Executive Dean of Letters and Science (Why? EALC language courses are restricted, as of Fall 2008, to L and S students; further restrictions to just majors and minors are foreseeable in the near future.)
Phone: 642-8560
Email: Mark_Richards@berkeley.edu

Janet S. Broughton, Dean of Arts and Humanities (Why? She interpreted the cuts she received from Breslauer and assigned great damage to EALC.)
Phone: 642-5396
Email: broughton@berkeley.edu

Christina Maslach, Vice Provost, Undergraduate Division (Why? Most of you are undergraduates and she's your go-to person.)
Phone: 642-9594
Email: maslach@berkeley.edu

Andrew J. SZERI, Graduate Dean (Why? Graduate students in comp. lit. and related fields won't be able to complete their degrees in a timely fashion without access to EALC classes.)
Phone: 642-5472
Email: graddean@berkeley.edu

Jon Gjerde, Dean of Social Sciences (Why? Although EALC is not housed under "Social
Sciences," students in social sciences rely on EALC language courses.)
Phone: 642-2609
Email: gjerde@berkeley.edu

For the sake of convenience, here's a group email list for the above administrators:
chancellor@berkeley.edu, bresl@berkeley.edu, Mark_Richards@berkeley.edu,
broughton@berkeley.edu, maslach@berkeley.edu, graddean@berkeley.edu,
gjerde@berkeley.edu

The scripts that you can use (and modify) follow:

Short Email:

Dear Chancellor Birgeneau, Executive Dean Breslauer, Executive Dean Richards, Dean Broughton, Vice Provost Maslach, Dean Szeri, and Dean Gjerde:

My name is _____. I am a __ year [undergraduate/graduate student] studying _____. I am writing to protest the proposed budget cuts to Berkeley’s East Asian Languages and Cultures department, which threatens the very existence of Korean language studies and severely impacts the Chinese and Japanese programs. I chose to come to UC Berkeley for my education with the strength and prestige of the EALC department in mind. The strength of a Berkeley liberal arts education lies in the broad variety of courses offered by the university and made accessible to its student body. With the proposed cuts in funding to the EALC department, thousands of students will be deprived of the opportunity to study the languages and cultures of a region that are of increasing importance and relevance to the future of California and the United States. I strongly urge you to not go forward with the proposed cuts to EALC and to find an immediate alternative that allows for the continued growth and thriving development of Korean Studies and East Asian Languages and Cultures at UC Berkeley. Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
[Student name here]

Phone Call:

Dear [Administrator],

My name is _____. I am a __ year undergraduate studying _____. I am calling to protest the proposed budget cuts to Berkeley’s East Asian Languages and Cultures department, which would cripple the Korean Studies program and severely limit the Chinese and Japanese programs. I chose to come to Berkeley for my undergraduate education with the understanding that I would have access to these languages and the courses offered by these departments. I urge you to maintain the high level of education offered by the university by not going forward with the proposed cuts to the EALC department. Thank you for your time.

Working meeting Monday, 9am

The next working meeting will be Monday, 5/5 at 9am at Cafe Med, on Telegraph between Haste and Dwight. All are welcome.

Media Advisory

MAY 2, 2008

Media Contacts:

Susan J Kim: 925 787 9731 (jjkim@berkeley.edu ) [Korean]
Sarah Cho: 714 220 7498 (sarahecho@berkeley.edu)
Pauli Wai: 562 310 1448 (paulisum@gmail.com) [Mandarin & Cantonese]
Will Hsiao: 415 794 9770 (williamhsiao@berkeley.edu) [Mandarin & Japanese]
Andrew Leong: 510 301 0867 (generaldown@gmail.com) [Japanese]

PRESS CONFERENCE – “Save East Asian Languages @ Cal”

WHAT: A diverse coalition of UC Berkeley students will hold a press conference to address the devastating effect of impending California state budget cuts on the East Asian Languages and Cultures Department (EALC), while highlighting the historical neglect of the Korean Studies Program at UC Berkeley.

Some of the statistics concerning the impact of the budget cuts on EALC as of Fall 2008 include:

➢ Percentage of classes to be cut from each language in EALC

• Japanese 40%
• Chinese 54%
• Korean 66%

➢ Numbers of students to be cut from next year's classes (3200 to 1500 students)

• Chinese: 550
• Japanese: 496
• Korean: 484

At Berkeley, the flagship campus of the major university in the Pacific Rim, ethnic Asian students represent a near majority—45% out of 40,000.

WHO: Members of Committee to Save Korean Studies at UC Berkeley
Student & Community Organizations Endorsing the Issue

WHEN: Wednesday, May 7, 2008

TIME: 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

WHERE: IEAS Conference room
2223 Fulton Street, 6th Floor
Berkeley, CA 94720