On February 5th, the Board of Trustees voted to cut the Chinese Program along with Professor Xiaoling Shi's tenure position without any due process. However, Chinese was not one of the programs that were advised to be cut in the Academic Task Force report, which provided information and suggestions for a new staffing plan based on data evaluating the sustainability of the current academic programs. Professor Dodge, the head of the Faculty Council asserted that such a report was an “extensive” and “thoughtful” assessment; hence proving that the Chinese department’s performance is reliable and promising. Then what can be the real reason?

“If students want to study Chinese, then they shouldn’t come to Allegheny”. This alone clearly shows Allegheny’s stance in this situation. Currently, Chinese is the only East Asian language offered at Allegheny. If the Chinese program is cut from the curriculum, Allegheny will subsequently erase East Asia from their academic focus. Hence, this cut will be tremendously devastating towards Allegheny’s potential in this modernized generation, namely:

Students will lose opportunities to expand their knowledge beyond the scope of the Western region and Western ideologies. Students will severely limit their chance in becoming global citizens from the erasure of East Asian focus in this age of globalization.
Students who major in International Studies or Global Health will not be able to choose the East Asian focus anymore, undermining the meaning of the discipline since they will no longer be INTERNATIONAL or GLOBAL without East Asia.
Allegheny’s demographic will shift significantly since students with Asian interests or backgrounds will decrease sharply.
Asian, Asian-American, and Asian International students will lose one of the platforms where they feel safe and empowered at Allegheny.
Asian, American Asian, International, and minority students will lose a dedicated professor who has always put our needs first, who understands us, and who fights for us.

We are not just angry; we are also scared of how abruptly this school can cut a beloved program and a tenured position without any consultation from students and faculties, and especially without solid reasoning. This is evidence that Allegheny is willing to cut promising programs and valued faculty at any time. Furthermore, these cruel acts only serve to make the Allegheny community uneasy; not only are students anxious of potentially receiving news of losing their favorite academic programs or professors, the faculty, regardless of tenured status or not, are scared of losing their jobs as well.

Moreover, up until this point, the school hasn’t released any plan on how they will take care of the students who have declared a Chinese minor, showing the administration's lack of foresight in planning from the beginning.

Through this decision, Allegheny College is choosing to neglect the transparency of the process, the inclusivity of programs, and components that are important for a Liberal Arts education. This is an urgent matter since it has so many rippling effects on students and the Asian community on campus. If Allegheny can get through this time, this will be a premise for their dictatorial decision-making process regarding faculty positions and program reduction in the future. 

We ask the President's Office, the Board of Trustees, and the Academic Task Force to reevaluate the cut and reinstate the Chinese program. The Office should also establish a clear criteria of what qualifies a program as unsustainable. Nevertheless, the administration has to gather an adequate amount of evidence and opinion from students, faculties, student organizations, etc. in their decision-making process.

Please also consider donating to Professor Shi's GoFundMe for legal fees as well.