The Australian Society for French Studies condemns the proposal from the University of Wollongong to disestablish its entire Languages Discipline, including not only French but Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese and English Language and Linguistics, effective 31 January 2025. Language skills and cultural competency cannot be outsourced and are essential to an Australia adapted to our globalised world of multilingual commerce, cultures and geopolitics. We call on the University to reverse this shortsighted decision immediately.
Sign the petition: https://chng.it/nsVC2xyxH9
Languages at Wollongong are a thriving scholarly and teaching discipline, with French consistently drawing significant enrolments and operating at a financial surplus. Wollongong Languages staff are internationally recognised researchers, with several ARC and international grant-holders, experts in areas as diverse as functional and applied linguistics, dialects and creoles of the Francophone and Hispanic worlds, medieval and modern literature, medical discourse and disability studies. They include three holders of regional and national teaching awards and are respected among peers and organisations in their field nationally and internationally. In particular, the UOW French Program was scheduled to host the 2025 Australian Society for French Studies conference, a prestigious responsibility.
Languages are not only vital assets in a rapidly globalising world and recognised as priority career skills by the Australian Government, including in concrete terms through its Job-ready Graduates Package. They also foster profound critical thinking, interdisciplinary and cross-cultural competencies in our students, support our multicultural communities and generate crucial new knowledge that strengthens academia, the economy and society.
The loss of Languages at the University of Wollongong would deeply damage the University’s reputation in Australia and globally, threaten Wollongong students’ professional and intellectual success and create a knowledge and skills gap in the region.
We call on all colleagues, students and friends of languages in Australia and abroad to mobilise against this shortsighted and harmful decision. We stand with the NTEU and our UOW colleagues at this difficult time and urge you all to sign this petition, write to the University and share widely with your networks.
Most importantly, we call on the University to acknowledge the importance of Languages at UOW – and the viability of French – and to abandon its plan.