Queen’s Greek and Latin: An update

On behalf of the Department of Classics and Archaeology at Queen’s, I want to very warmly thank everyone who wrote in support of our language teaching and who signed our petition. I am very happy to announce that we are temporarily suspending our letter-writing campaign. We are not out of the woods yet, not by a long shot, but we have achieved a minor victory that may well buy us enough time to revamp our language courses so that we meet the minimum enrollments going forward.

As a result of the campaign and some truly humbling on-the-ground support from faculty members, staff, and students across our own university, the Provost has agreed to a very sensible compromise, one that extends the timeline for the implementation of austerity measures by an extra year, and he has done so for the entire Faculty of Arts and Science. This is a huge relief. For us, it means that the minimum enrollment rule will also be postponed by a year, not just for us but for all departments (foreign languages and music are similarly breathing sighs of relief). We are cautiously optimistic that this may buy us just enough time to implement some on-the-ground strategies to boost our numbers. Our fingers are crossed.

On a personal note, it has been really amazing and encouraging, as well as very sobering, to see the response that we received from all corners of the world. But it was not just the volume of responses, it was the thoughtfulness and concern in them that helped to remind us here at Queen’s that we are not alone in this fight. (It is worth scrolling through the many comments on our petition page at https://www.queensu.ca/classics/thank-you; we are also hoping soon to set up a thank-you page with the letters sent directly to our senior administrators, many of which we were cc'd on.)

As the stories started pouring in from other institutions in similar or--for many--even worse situations, what really hit home for me was the importance of our collective advocacy and increased vigilance going forward. One by one departments are closing, being merged, or being wound down and it always starts, it seems, with the languages. Whoever among us is able, whenever the opportunity arises, we must be banging the drum as publicly and loudly as possible for Greek and Latin, for Classics, for the Humanities, and for small, specialized courses in core areas of the Humanities. Of course, some of us have been doing a most impressive job of this for quite some time, but I myself have suddenly woken up to the fact that I personally have not, and I need to get to work in earnest on that front. For those of us working in publicly funded institutional settings especially, if politicians and the public do not see value in us, we are lost. 

So thank you again to all who wrote and signed on our behalf. The battle here is not over, but we’re hoping that the small reprieve that we won will be enough to keep us moving forward for the time being. 

Fingers crossed and now to work.

-Daryn Lehoux