Viewpoint: Join the fight for actual inclusive excellence
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December 8, 2016
UW-La Crosse has pledged to uphold Inclusive Excellence in order to better serve its students. The Diversity and Inclusion tab on the university website states, “Through the implementation of Inclusive Excellence, UW-La Crosse pledges to continue to commit human and financial resources that support an inclusive campus that attracts and retains diverse students…” Recently, however, Hmong students have been receiving a very different message from their university. Without notice, Hmong language courses MLG 204 and 304 were taken off UWL’s online course selection approximately a week prior to the beginning of registration for spring semester.
Dr. Bee Lo has been the instructor for these classes for the past 14 years. Lo first heard of his own classes being put on hiatus when a student sought help from him when they could not find class information online. Confused, the instructor contacted his department chair to investigate. After doing so, he was told the chair was to meet with the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts before offering the course. At this point registration was only three days away, with 15 students expressing interest in this course and 3 of whom planning to graduate in the spring. Seven days later, Lo was notified the course would be put on hiatus. Reasons for the drop included inconsistent enrollment and budget, despite having numbers above the standard minimum. “It just doesn’t make sense to me,” said Lo.
Hmong Organization Promoting Education Student Senator Chevana Vang was also surprised by the decision. “It was taken out of the books before we could even register for it,” said Vang. Student Association passed a resolution in support of Hmong learning opportunities at UWL, and the Student Senate of Eau Claire passed one in support as well. However, the university has only agreed to bring back the class in the form of distance learning, which doesn’t sit well with students who were originally interested in these classes. Vang and Maggie Xiong, a fellow member of HOPE, doubt the effectiveness of distance learning for the Hmong language. “I’m going to keep fighting until we get what we want, until Dr. Bee is in that class physically teaching us,” said Xiong, “because that’s how you teach a language course, especially this language.”
“Students of color have to go through this stuff all the time, which is really damaging,” expressed Xiong. “I knew that it was something close to home and that I had to do something about it because, if I didn’t then nobody would.” The third highest population of Hmong people lives in Wisconsin, with La Crosse County hosting one of the largest concentrations in the state. Hmong students deserve better. “Moving forward from this, this has been said a lot, but this is really important to the Hmong community. This is who we are,” believes Vang. Members of HOPE, in addition to those in support of these classes being reinstated, encourage students to join them in the fight at the open forum Thursday evening at 7 in Port O’ Call.
Ntxooovyia • Dec 10, 2016 at 4:45 pm
It is a shame that UW-Lacrosse as a land granted prestigious higher institutions would try to marginalized some of its own citizens’ heritage.
Kao-Ly • Dec 10, 2016 at 12:33 pm
One of the reasons for which programs are cancelled: the lack of students who took the courses. So how to implement?
My dear Hmong fellows, be aware. This is a new era where the Hmong students do not naturally take the Hmong courses because they are Hmong. In order for them to take Hmong course, they must be aware of the importance of the Hmong language as the essential constitutive part of their academic foundation, strength, empowerment to succeed in the Mainstream society. At the same time, advocate for the reinstatement of these courses –BECAUSE THE HMONG COURSES ARE NEEDED — also develop effective and long-term strategies for students recruitment:
CREATE HMONG LANGUAGE CLUBS to show the beauties, the fun of such a language, to share knowledge, enjoyment with the whole campus community,
CREATE SCHOLARSHIPS to encourage students to study the Hmong language and culture, to develop the sense of gratitude, and commitment.
ORGANIZE TRIPS to China, Southeast Asia, France, Canada, Argentina to visit Hmong communities so that the university sees the benefits at a larger scale, and students can learn about their heritage, feel connected to a bigger world, realize their potential professional growth within their own communities,
ALSO CREATE or PARTICIPATE TO HMONG LANGUAGE WORKSHOPS so that the Hmong instructors are up to date with the teaching skills, trends, …. As a language prof (French and Hmong) for more than 2 decades, I have learned that “students graduate with their language professors” if the prof are competent, interesting, well-educated, global fashion, modern, and “talking” to them in a way that they can connect to the issues, topics, themes studied in the Hmong classes, … . Students must feel and see that they are learning, improving, making use of their knowledge in these Hmong courses in order for them to stick, to stay in these courses.
TEACH IN A MODERN WAY. Teach students to connect with the global issues, not only on how to blend sounds or spelling. Teach them to connect with their “self”, and from that to the global world where diversity is a wealth of knowledge, of invention, of creation that will boost the human imaginative mind, where inclusiveness is the heart of a tolerant, harmonious, and so successful society, where people would love to create, to undertake bigger projects for the well-being of the whole community at large.
KEEP DIALOGUING WITH THE LEADERS OF YOUR UNIVERSITY, and move to ESTABLISH A STRONGER PROGRAM.
I totally agree that LONG-DISTANCE learning is definitively not efficient for beginning language learners.
Courage. For the Hmong people, fighting for their language has been a 4000 -year battle. But for the university, it was a logistic, number issue.
Thank you for all your support and effort to make the Hmong language live because dwell in this Hmong language a kind and loving humanistic tradition, vision of the world, knowledge of the others, and notions of love, of diversity, of inclusiveness.
To know more about the Hmong/Miao people, here are some references
+ Shen Congwen, author of fiction and prose who is commonly considered the greatest lyric novelist in modern China. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shen-Congwen
+ The book “Soul Mountain” by Nobel Price Gao Xingjian: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2000/press.html
+ Qin Liangyu, a Woman General of the Ming Dynasty: http://www.womenofchina.cn/womenofchina/html1/people/history/15/1118-1.htm
+ Song Zuying, the most famous soprano in China: http://arts.cultural-china.com/en/97A9837A13860.html ( Peformant at the Kennedy Center: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbEjPGsTq1k, At the Olympics game: http://www.zimbio.com/photos/Song+Zuying/Olympics+Closing+Ceremony/XVqUdhzJy6s)
etc.
Ian Baird • Dec 9, 2016 at 8:19 am
I think it is important that these Hmong language classes be offered at UW-La Crosse. These classes are important for students and enrollment seems sufficient to justify them.