The most recent manifestation of budget cuts has gouged out a vital piece of learning that has been essential to the unique opportunity LSU claims to offer its students.  Globalization — and more specifically the globalization of our economy— is arguably the most significant trend affecting the job market and society that LSU students will be entering throughout the next  decade. So what programs and electives would be most valuable for students trying to compete in an international network of opportunities?  Apparently not foreign languages.  Fourteen foreign language teachers are being dismissed and 4 programs are being cut entirely: Japanese, Swahili, Portuguese and Russian.  I understand the possible obscurity some people perceive when hearing these names; who speaks these languages anyway? Well, let’s start with Japan, recently overtaking Germany as the third largest economy in the world behind China and the U.S.  Swahili is a growing language spoken all over East Africa that plays an increasingly important role in relations between African countries.  Only about 5 million people speak it as their first language, but over 50 million speak it as their second or third. Its importance as a “lingua franca” bringing different groups of people together is exceedingly significant.  And Portuguese-speaking Brazil, the fifth largest country in the world, will undoubtedly play a major role in the coming decades. It’s the largest national economy in Latin America and predicted to become one of the five largest in the world within the next twenty years. But these are just competitive economic factors; the personal value of learning other languages is immeasurable.  Besides opening up infinite new opportunities of learning and communication, studying foreign languages forces your brain to pave new cognitive pathways that can shape our thinking.  It helps you understand the perspectives of people in other parts of the world, including what it’s like to be a foreigner trying to function in the world of a different language.  It may help you understand why foreigners seem to say the goofiest, most hilarious things in English and how much you can really learn by going through the same processes. I know budget cuts are forced on the University, and they have to make them somewhere. But I cannot emphasize how increasingly important foreign languages are in our world today, and if LSU wants to be serious about the future, these need to be defended as strongly as anything else.
 
Evan Doremus
International Studies and Spanish senior
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