Petitions
  • Student petition Anyone with a valid CalNet ID may sign. Viewing is open to the public.
  • Open petition For alumni and concerned people everywhere - no CalNet ID required.
Information
Get Involved
Privacy Notice
No information is gathered about web visitors. For petition signers, the name and date of the signing is stored. See here for full details.

Donate to EALC Language Instruction

Download the form with complete instructions on how to donate money, and ensure 100% is marked for EALC Language instruction.


Note to other departments

If other departments facing cuts in language instruction would like information posted here, we are only too happy to help. The importance of language education to Berkeley's stated goals and competitiveness is universal. Please send the materials you'd like to see on this site to here.


Please sign our petition

In the next fiscal year of 2008, UC Berkeley’s East Asian Languages and Cultures department faces a cut of 25% to the budget earmarked for language lecturers and Graduate Student Instructors.* What this means for students is:

Percentage of classes to be cut from each language:

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

Numbers of students to be cut from next year’s classes:

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

(Source: EALC office)

This academic year, 3200 students took EALC language classes—and we already had to turn away hundreds of interested students for lack of funds. Next year, EALC will only be able to accommodate 1500 students.

* This budget for language lecturers and GSIs is what is known as the TAS budget. These are "soft expenses" and thus the most easily cut item in the departmental budget. See "Why this is happening".

Important!

This hurts all of Berkeley

Next academic year, students outside the College of Letters and Science will not be able to take Korean, Chinese or Japanese. If the cuts remain in future years, EALC likely will have to limit enrollment to EALC students only. This affects UC Berkeley’s ability to offer a curriculum that is truly inter-disciplinary and international in perspective.

This also directly impacts the job competitiveness of Berkeley graduates. See here for an EECS example.

For example, students affected include those in:

  • The Haas School of Business
  • The College of Chemistry
  • The Graduate School of Education
  • The College of Engineering
  • College of Environmental Design (including departments of Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and City and Regional Planning)
  • School of Information
  • Graduate School of Journalism
  • Law School (Boalt Hall)
  • College of Natural Resources (including Departments of Agricultural and Resource Economics; Environmental Science, Policy, and Management; Nutritional Science; and Plant and Microbial Biology)
  • School of Public Health
  • Richard & Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy
  • School of Social Welfare.

Read the full article. READ MORE