Ciruti by Xiran Li ‘23
By Ladin Akcacioglu ’24
Contributing Writer
Four years ago, a group of Mount Holyoke students organized a campaign aptly titled “Mount Holyoke Doesn’t Teach Me.” As archived by the Daily Hampshire Gazette in 2018, students at the time organized this campaign to address the lack of inclusion in our curriculum. The Gazette quoted several anonymous students who pointed out that Mount Holyoke fails to teach its students “that South Asian poets and authors are significant;” about “non-Western art history;” “about [their] culture without the colonizer’s perspective;” and about the “history of Muslim countries in an unbiased way.”
Little has changed in the last four years. The concern over the lack of global voices in the curriculum has been going on for a long time. The recent decision to downsize the Arabic language program is just the latest example.
On Wednesday, Feb. 16, along with several other first-year Arabic students, I was informed that intermediate Arabic would not be taught at the College next year. Without a Mount Holyoke based Arabic teacher, we are now expected to travel off campus to further our Arabic studies — with a new teacher, in a new institution. We were also informed that only a first-year Arabic language class would be taught by a visiting Amherst lecturer. This recent decision effectively eliminated the last remaining commitment this institution had in the Arabic language program.
Students address growing concerns
Concerns regarding the global voices missing from Mount Holyoke’s education have recently manifested in a debate over the place of language in the College’s curriculum. In lieu of the collective frustration we feel with the College’s lack of commitment to our education, a couple of us started Save our Departments, a student-led call to address the lack of investment in a “diverse, global and inclusive” liberal arts education. As a member of this group, I am a part of the attempt to mobilize the student body and shine a light on our collective frustrations.
According to Jackie Hahn ’24, critical social thought and English double major, being part of Save our Departments has been overwhelming.
“The Google form we have shared asking to vocalize student frustrations in regards to the academic experience in Mount Holyoke has received 70 answers in just a week across many departments,” Hahn said. “The most common concern was the lack of resources and faculty, especially in the social sciences, languages and humanities.”
“What we’re looking to do is to be heard by the administration and fight for the survival of a liberal arts education that is funded across all disciplines … especially those that are deemed financially unprofitable — such as the humanities, area studies, languages, ethnic studies and the arts,” Hahn said. “These [areas of study] are all fundamental parts of an anti-racist education, a radical education and a global education.” As Save our Departments, we are also attempting to provide transparency to the struggles of students by sharing anonymous student responses on Instagram @saveourdeptsmhc.
“I believe to truly be an anti-racist institution we need to fund education that has a nuanced approach to U.S. intervention worldwide,” anthropology major Kasssandra Gonzalez ’24, another member of Save our Departments, stated. In regards to the upcoming February Board of Trustees meeting, she added, “I want the Board of Trustees, who are meeting this Saturday, to know that it is hypocritical of them to defund the humanities while keeping the facade of a liberal arts education. … My biggest hope is that the Trustees and committees deciding the future of the College will hear this with open hearts.”
“Student enrollments in languages other than English have been declining both at MHC and nationally,” Dorothy Mosby, interim dean of faculty and professor of Spanish, wrote in a statement to Mount Holyoke News on Feb. 23. “Since 2017, the percentage of incoming students interested in the languages being discussed has steadily lingered below one half of a percent.” She continued, “By comparison, during the same time, we’ve seen interest grow by more than a half a percent in data science, politics and psychology, and remain steadily high in biological sciences, English and pre-health.” Mosby also stated that “The faculty have been in conversation for at least two decades about the state of teaching languages, literatures and cultures at Mount Holyoke.”
According to Iyko Day, associate professor of English and chair of critical social thought and gender studies, a big aspect of language studies is about “humanistic inquiry.” To Day, “this is a question of how resources are distributed across the curriculum, and humanistic inquiry seems to be less of a priority. This is reflected in the decline of the humanities as a general trend in higher education.”
Mosby clarified, “The Arabic instruction in Mount Holyoke will continue via the Five College Consortium.”
“I must emphasize that there are no immediate plans to end language instruction in Arabic, German or Russian or those majors at Mount Holyoke College,” Mosby said. While Mount Holyoke will continue offering Arabic classes through the Consortium, for those who truly want to immerse themselves in the language, there will be no intermediate classes at their disposal on campus.
Area studies are valuable
The future of language education at Mount Holyoke is ambiguous, but this is nothing new. SGA President Lasya Priya Rao Jarugumilli ’23, an international student from India, endured similar uncertainties as a sophomore when they had to travel to attend Five Colleges courses to pursue second-year Arabic studies.
“I came to college wanting to study South Asian Studies and topics related to the Global South, especially from a non-European and American perspective,” Jarugumilli said. “My first year of college, I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to pursue South Asian Studies because of the lack of classes offered on campus, so I decided that I would do Middle Eastern Studies instead,” Jarugumilli added.
Upon completing their second year of Arabic study off-campus and taking various Five College classes to fulfill their major requirements, Jarugumilli came to the disappointing realization that “the infrastructure to support this field of study simply did not exist in Mount Holyoke.” They are now pursuing a self-designed social thought and political economy major.
Jarugumilli’s story sounded alarmingly familiar, echoing the frustrations and worries I have been feeling in the last couple of weeks as a Middle Eastern Studies major. Without intermediate Arabic being offered on campus next year and with restrictions on the number of classes I can take off-campus, I might find myself at a similar crossroads.
“The Five College Consortium is a wonderful resource, but relying on it by default can create problems — the very burden of commuting for classes discourages students from pursuing their studies of interest,” Jarugumilli said. Having to travel off-campus via the PVTA and limits on how many classes students are allowed to take off-campus are just some examples of such barriers.
Currently, the Asian Studies department encompasses the interdisciplinary studies of the Middle East, South Asia and East Asia — a study of the peoples, languages, religions and history of the biggest continent of the world. I want to highlight the orientalist undertones of flocking the entire continent under a single department while refusing to give space and resources to each geographical region the department encompasses.
The Middle Eastern Studies major already lacks a faculty position specializing in the history of the region, which is necessary to fulfill basic major requirements, and without intermediate Arabic classes, there is no way for it to survive in the long term. Limiting the study of the Arabic language will put the Middle Eastern Studies major on the chopping block — its demise will be inevitable.
Jarugumilli continued by addressing the importance of making space for ethnic studies and area studies in the curriculum. “For a lot of students in this campus, receiving an education on area studies and ethnic studies has been essential, not only just to their academic development but to their identity development as a whole,” they said.
As an international student from Turkey, I am one of the students who has immensely benefited from studying the region I come from. Beyond directly benefiting from my peers being educated on the region I call home, getting to see myself in a textbook is truly empowering. Studying marginalized regions whose positions have been defined in relation to the West and whose histories have been impacted by imperialism allows us — the students from these areas — to be active participants in our own narrative-making instead of a mere object of study. Mount Holyoke can’t be a global institution simply by admitting international students — it can do so by making space in the curriculum for different cultures, religions and languages.
Although Middle Eastern Studies is being stifled out of existence, the College continues to promote it on its website as if it’s a functional department that can be pursued by prospective majors. However, the reality of the resources at student’s disposal are greatly lacking.
Middle Eastern Studies and international relations double major Kristen Adolf ’23 stated that they have been “incredibly disappointed by Mount Holyoke’s lack of support and resources for some of our academic programs.”
Acadia Ferrero-Lampron ’23, another Middle Eastern Studies major, said when they were “applying to colleges, having an international relations and Middle Eastern Studies program was important to me, but because of the difficulty I have had with classes, completing one major has been hard enough that I [have] decided not to pursue a second major.” Lampron added, “If I was not already a junior, I would transfer.”
“It’s ironic that Mount Holyoke requires taking a language class as part of distribution requirements and promotes them to prospective students as ways to gain experience for studying abroad, but meanwhile is shrinking the department,” Rianna Robertson ’22, a senior majoring in Neuroscience and Behavior, said. Robertson’s emphasis on study-abroad programs touches upon a vital point. The College’s firm commitment to a globally inclusive education is compromised by its resistance to giving the student body exposure to a broad range of languages and cultures.
The lack of commitment to Middle Eastern Studies is not a unique case. Professor and Chair of International Relations Sohail Hashmi voiced his concern about the gradual decline of globally inclusive education at Mount Holyoke.
“This institution used to pride itself on its international vision but, of late, there is no commitment to that vision,” Hashmi said. He also mentioned that “there is no one now who teaches Russian politics on our campus. German and Russian and Eurasian studies now have only one tenured faculty member each and their request for resources has continuously been denied.”
Professor of Italian Ombretta Frau echoed Hashmi’s worries. As the only tenured Italian professor in the Department of Classics and Italian, Frau pointed out, “Whenever we ask for academic positions, we are always told we can’t afford them. The first thing on the cutting block always seems to be the languages.”
The recent decision to eliminate second-year Arabic classes pushed me to re-examine the College’s commitment to my education — and how little I have already been receiving in my area of study, even before the cut. I feel severe anxiety for my future as a student who is majoring in a department that has seemingly been deemed unworthy of investment solely based on its financial return data and popularity. Quite frankly, the idea of transferring to another institution that has a true commitment to global excellence has crossed my mind.
I started my investigation solely to comprehend what my department has been going through. However, after three weeks of talking to countless peers and hearing from many faculty members, one thing is certain — I am not the only one feeling anxious about the future of education at Mount Holyoke, nor am I the only one reconsidering whether this institution is worth staying at.
Planning for the future
In the strategic plan of Mount Holyoke College for 2023, “liberal arts” is mentioned seven times, the word “education” is mentioned nine times and the word “global” is mentioned 16 times. It is time the College shows its commitment to “global excellence,” “[retaining] an excellent and diverse faculty” and “strengthen[ing] programming that promotes understanding, exchange and a diversity of voices and perspectives in the classroom.” It is time for the College to uphold the promises and objectives it made to the student body.
Although the languages, humanities and social sciences are the ones that are suffering most immediately, students from all disciplines have expressed frustration via the Save our Departments form. Save our Departments will try our best to give voice to all members of the student body.
Beyond the lack of commitment to a truly diverse and global education, the main issue at hand is a lack of transparency concerning the College’s long-term academic priorities. There are still many student voices that this article did not get to address and I hope to write another article on departmental mergers and issues that humanities and social sciences are facing as a whole.
The sole reason for forming Save our Departments and for writing this article was to start a productive conversation regarding the future of our education at this institution. Despite our frustrations, I think this institution is worth fighting for. Although it shouldn’t be on the backs of the student body to demand clear lines of communication and hold the administration accountable to its promises, that seems to be the only way for us to attain the education we were promised. I have no doubt that there is a way forward that doesn’t involve cutting programs.
In her statement to Mount Holyoke News regarding the future of language education, Mosby stated that she is “convening a Curricular Action Committee, a subcommittee of the Academic Priorities Committee which is charged with overseeing the curriculum. … This new subcommittee will be charged to make a recommendation for a creative and innovative structure to support the teaching of language and culture at Mount Holyoke, with the specific near-term focus on German and Russian.” Mosby added, “The subcommittee will include faculty from language programs, faculty from non-language departments and faculty from standing committees. … This group will present findings via a report to the [Academic Priorities Committee] and the dean of faculty’s office by the end of the spring semester.”
Mosby’s remarks made me hopeful about future expression of the College’s academic priorities. Meanwhile, I believe it is up to us, the student body, to vocalize our opinions regarding our education. Only then will Mount Holyoke begin to re-examine its responsibilities to its students.