Advocacy
ACLS Community Members Respond to West Virginia University Cuts
On September 11, 2023, ACLS released a statement responding to proposed cuts by the West Virginia University Board of Governors and Administrators to its undergraduate and graduate programs. Many members of the ACLS community, including our member societies and past fellows, have also responded publicly to the cuts and shared their potential impact on higher education and the humanities across the country:
News Articles
- “Opinion: West Virginia University’s cuts are a travesty” by Paula M. Krebs, Executive Director, Modern Language Association
- “Gutting Language Departments Would Be a Disaster” in The Chronicle of Higher Education by Rebecca L. Walkowitz F’02, Dean of the Humanities, Rutgers-New Brunswick,
Statements by ACLS Member Societies
- American Comparative Literature Association: Open Letter to President E. Gordon Gee
- Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies: AATSEEL/ASEEES Joint Letter to West Virginia University
- German Studies Association: “Preserve World Languages at WVU”
- Linguistic Society of America: Letter to President Gordon Gee and Provost Maryanne Reed
- Modern Language Association: “MLA Executive Director Speaks Out against Dramatic Cuts to Humanities Programs at West Virginia University”
Research in language and literature needs the support of universities if we are to move forward in our understanding of the world around us, and that is no less true in the humanities than it is in science and technology fields. Paula Krebs
