Letters to the Editor
Dear President David Leebron and all other concerned parties,I was recently informed that the Rice administration is considering cutting the linguistics graduate program. As a recent Rice University alumna, this news troubles me greatly. I graduated in 2011 with a bachelor's degree in linguistics and cognitive science, and I wholeheartedly feel that my excellent education with the Department of Linguistics was a large part of what made my experience at Rice a great one. The high-quality professors taught many of the most engaging classes I took at Rice - specific credit to associate professor of linguistics Robert Englebretson, one of the best teachers I have ever encountered. Many of the classes I took were either attended by or taught by graduate students, and I can say with confidence that my education would have been lacking without the valuable input and influence of those students. In addition to providing academic help, they were role models and mentors and encouraged me to continue pursuing my passion for language.Additionally, my training in the linguistics department directly helped me gain acceptance into the increasingly competitive Peace Corps. At the moment, I teach high school English as a foreign language in a small village in rural Mozambique. I use the knowledge and skills I gained from studying linguistics on a daily basis - specifically, the knowledge of how to teach language, which I learned from linguistics department chair Michel Achard and associate professor of linguistics Suzanne Kemmer. In addition, I also employ daily the more general skills of critical thinking and reasoning that I learned as a student of linguistics at Rice. I hope to continue using these skills after my Peace Corps service as a member of the United States Foreign Service.I have been an avid supporter of Rice as an alumna, encouraging many young college-bound kids to apply to and attend Rice. My time at Rice was one of the happiest and most valuable in my life, due to many factors - academics, the residential college system, extracurricular activities, etc. Upon graduating, I wholeheartedly planned to donate to Rice annually for the rest of my life in order to make an experience like mine possible for the new generation of undergraduates. However, over the past few years, I see many of those aspects of Rice that made my time so special disappearing - first the sale of KTRU, and now the possible closure of my department of study.This morning, I made a gift to Rice University, designating its use for the Department of Linguistics. If the Rice administration goes ahead with the closure of the linguistics graduate program - and eventually the linguistics department - you can be assured that this morning's donation will be the last I ever make to Rice University.Make the right decision.Thank you,Helen ShawJones '11 To The Editor:Eliminating the Rice graduate program in linguistics would be hugely detrimental to the undergraduate experience and education because linguistics majors benefit greatly from personal interaction with graduate students. Their life experience yields valuable contributions to class discussions, augmenting what undergraduates take away from courses. Hardworking, friendly and helpful, they are exceptional role models and sources of information, especially for planning life beyond the hedges.Some believe removing the graduate program would allow faculty to focus on undergraduates. To say that the graduate students currently distract linguistics faculty is plainly untrue. In fact, graduate students round out our education as we learn with and from them in and outside of class. The graduate students are an inextricable component of the linguistics department's extraordinarily supportive environment in which to learn and plan one's future.Furthermore, the fact that courses would no longer be designed for a larger and more advanced student body - not to mention the sudden dearth of teaching assistants forcing smaller class sizes - would vastly reduce the number and quality of courses available to the undergraduate population. The graduate students also maintain the departmental colloquium series, the Rice Linguistics Society and the biennial linguistics conference. The termination of the graduate program would deprive undergraduates of valuable curricular and extracurricular opportunities.Finally, the abrupt decline in value of our degrees is an unfair surprise to undergraduate linguistics majors working hard to earn a prestigious degree. The way the administration has treated our department does little to inspire confidence that the university has our best interests in mind.Emily Remirez Baker College junior