Seeking to combat the perceived language barrier between students and their Teaching Fellows, the Student Life Task Force last week proposed an initiative calling for a more stringent language standard, rigorous English training and a selective screening process.
The measure, sent last week to Provost Dennis Berkey from the Student Life Task Force, marked the culmination of a two-year effort by students to enlist the support of the administration in their efforts to mitigate student-TF communication, which they claim is inhibited by poor English skills on the part of many TFs, “frequently [contributing] to undergraduate disillusionment with the University.”
“Because the Teaching Fellow program affects all undergraduate colleges directly or indirectly, Faculty Council is addressing the … inability to communicate with undergraduates effectively in English,” the letter read.
Signed by the Executive Committee of Faculty Council and the Student Life Task Force, including Student Union Executive Board President Jennifer Sutherland, the proposal outlines a four-step program that would:
• Filter international TFs through a more rigid screening process providing in-person interviews done by members of Boston University’s Charles River Campus, who would be sent to international sites.
• Place Chinese TFs in an intensive English as a Second Language program.
• Continue a number of already instated programs that have proved effective, including orientations for international TFs.
• Fund a semester of English training in lieu of normal TF teaching schedules. This program would prepare TFs for a proficiency exam that would qualify them to teach.
These measures, according to the letter, were compiled after consulting with Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Alan Marscher and Carol Pineiro, a lecturer in the Center for English Language and Orientation.
“There are a number of eminent faculty involved in this project and they’re behind the students 100 percent,” said Student Union Chair of Academic Affairs Jennifer Cross. “I’m hoping [Berkey will] take this into account.”
“The administration, faculty and students want Boston University to excel in all areas,” the letter read. “Increasing support for the TF-LPE [Teaching Fellows Less Than Proficient in English] is one of the many positive ways of achieving this.”
The letter calls for adoption of these measures by 2002. It does not, however, request a formal reply from Berkey, instead asking for the Provost’s “support.”
“This isn’t something that can be easily ignored — this is student’s academic lives on the line,” said Cross, a College of Arts and Sciences junior.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
