Health in the City

My left arm hurts from a TD immunization injection. I’m resolved to blogging about it only because all those darlings I’ve approached for petting the said hand to health have turned it down or have kept quiet and I’ve been left to my own devices: rest, and vulnerability, like a little boy returning from his first hospital visit 🙁 .

The only memorable thing to say was that I paid $6 for said shot, and I have become the last person to do so. As from tomorrow, people approaching the University Health centre to take the shots would pay up to $39. For the first time in over a decade, the State of Illinois is withdrawing subsidies on this service to students and the University Health Centre, as they told me yesterday, will now have to buy the medication by themselves at market value, and sell to students at market price.

It’s the economy, stupid. I’m sure that students won’t be smiling from the Health Centre anytime soon. Not international students at least, many of whom are studying on very limited personal funds. Neither does it help that this mandatory expense is not covered by the $500 per semester compulsory students Health Insurance policies.

Save Foreign Language Departments!

“22 staff in Modern Languages at Swansea University are threatened with compulsory redundancy. A proposed restructuring announced by the University on August 6, with no prior consultation, would delete 40 academic jobs in all, in 9 departments, over the next three years. 95 people have been told that their jobs are at risk. Of the 40 redundancies, 11.8 are planned in Modern Languages, with effect from summer 2011. The department has 22 lecturing staff. Just 10 will remain. Its the swiftest, most savage cut proposed. Its also very bad news for education in Wales.”

This is an excerpt from the news of a horrible trend now sweeping through Universities around the world where departments of foreign languages are taking the brunt of a global economic instability. Swansea University in Wales is only one. We don’t know how many more will follow if this horrible experiment goes through, and we’re calling all lovers of language and the academia to take a stand and make noise about this, and write letters of protest to protect the jobs of these professors and the whole idea of foreign language literacy at large. Foreign Language departments are not useless, nor are they just decorative appendages of art faculties. They contribute to knowledge, the economy, and understanding across nations. Please lend your voice. Send a strongly worded letter to the Vice Chancellor at Swansea. It will go a long way in influencing their decision.

Read more about this unfortunate case and how you can help at Clarissa’s blog.