A few weeks ago, the Department of Near Eastern Studies voted to cancel the "Arabic Without Walls" program, a distance-learning Arabic language course that had been in development for the past several years on grants from the US Department of Education.
The Department, which offers no funding for the program and thus has no financial motive to cancel it, wavered in its reasoning, now standing by the assertion that the award-winning program, developed under Sonia S'hiri, drew resources away from the Arabic program at Berkeley. This claim, however, has not been explained and there is no convincing evidence to support it, as testimony from current and past students can attest.
As students, we support increasing accessibility to the Arabic language in America. "Arabic Without Walls" allowed students at other UC schools to enroll in the course on-line, if their University did not offer Arabic. Keeping with its tradition, UC Berkeley took the lead in developing this technology and expanding access to knowledge.
Please consider taking a few minutes to act now in support of the program. You may read more about the program and this campaign here, but you should also:
E-mail The Chair, Chancellor, and Dean
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