Students told not to speak Chinese in public areas

Avenged7Fold · 28 Jan 2019 at 13:04

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-47022374

A US university professor has been removed as director of a graduate programme, amid a furore over an email she sent urging students not to speak Chinese

Megan Neely, an assistant professor at Duke University in North Carolina, said in an email to students that two unnamed faculty members of the biostatistics Masters programme had complained to her about students speaking Chinese in public areas in the department.

She said that not speaking English could lead to "unintended consequences" for international students.

Dr Neely said that two faculty members had asked her if she had photos of students on the Masters programme, before picking out a number of first-year students "who they observed speaking Chinese (in their words, VERY LOUDLY), in the student lounge/study areas".

Dr Neely said that the faculty members told her "they wanted to write down the names so they could remember them if the students ever interviewed for an internship or asked to work with them for a masters project

What do we think guys?

I personally think the faculty members who complained should be punished more than the professor. They came to her and implied that students talking in public areas in Chinese will risk chances of advancing with those members. Though imo she should have reported or reprimanded the members rather than side with them and try to fumble a solution to a problem that doesn't really exist.

Who cares if people speak a foreign language in private conversation. Speaking too loudly to the point where you disturb people is rude in any language but it seems the issue here is language rather than volume.

PlacidCasual · 28 Jan 2019 at 13:12

Even the Beeb story lacks context, we really don't know why the professors object to Chinese. It could be because the majority of the course are English second language students and the minority aren't Chinese so are being excluded. It could be any number of reasons. I would pay a subscription for all media outlets to boycott stupid student politics, just ignore the muppets instead of giving them a platform.

BoyceyLDN · 28 Jan 2019 at 13:15

Story lacks context, think PC and the world has gone mad seems a non-issue to me and too many people look to get upset by something nowdays, I am not sure why asking students to speak english in class is deemed a race issue personally. Also you could argue it is for security or could argue it's to prevent some form of cheating if their is an exam comming up.

Avenged7Fold · 28 Jan 2019 at 13:17

BoyceyLDN said:
Story lacks context, think PC and the world has gone mad seems a non-issue to me and too many people look to get upset by something nowdays, I am not sure why asking students to speak english in class is deemed a race issue personally. Also you could argue it is for security or could argue it's to prevent some form of cheating if their is an exam comming up.

It is not about in class, it is about all areas of the building, including student lounge area and study area.

Dr Neely said that two faculty members had asked her if she had photos of students on the Masters programme, before picking out a number of first-year students "who they observed speaking Chinese (in their words, VERY LOUDLY), in the student lounge/study areas".

I see no reason why you can't exclude others from a private conversation in a place like the student lounge.

Resident · 28 Jan 2019 at 13:19

I know a few foreign nationals who will only speak in English when in the company of others that don't speak their native language. Their reasoning is that they feel it's disrespectful to them and as a guest in an English speaking country they shouldn't be disrespectful.

I agree with that sentiment.

BoyceyLDN · 28 Jan 2019 at 13:20

Avenged7Fold said:
It is not about in class, it is about all areas of the building, including student lounge area and study area.

I see no reason why you can't exclude others from a private conversation in a place like the student lounge.

Does the school / university have a rule that all students must speak english whilst on premisis? If so then i guess that must be respected.

Roar87 · 28 Jan 2019 at 13:21

They didn't do anything wrong speaking their own language, no one needs to be punished and there doesn't need to be a witch hunt.

Avenged7Fold · 28 Jan 2019 at 13:21

BoyceyLDN said:
Does the school / university have a rule that all students must speak english whilst on premisis? If so then i guess that must be respected.

They do not. It is also discriminatory to let that effect student prospects.

For someone talking about a lack of context in the article, you sure didn't take time to read it for any context...

Roar87 said:
They didn't do anything wrong speaking their own language, no one needs to be punished and there doesn't need to be a witch hunt.

Faculty members were trying to get student names of those speaking Chinese so that they could take that into consideration when applying for internships or masters. I think thats wrong.

dowie · 28 Jan 2019 at 13:31

Silly professor, ultimately it is down to her as the director of the program to have pushed back on the complaint from the faculty members. I don't think the faculty members necessarily need punishment for making a partially unfounded complaint in private, they just needed to be told that they're wrong re: the language part and there were no grounds for that aspect of the complaint. The program director however has seemingly sent out an e-mail to students and incorrectly criticised the speaking of their own language - she should have checked university/department rules and or just exercised some common sense.

Re: talking loudly/being disruptive however, that is a legitimate complaint that could be handled in a much more diplomatic way without reference to language etc.. or necessarily calling out/shaming the students involved. I've witnessed certain international students from a similar background getting very loud during breaks, though it isn't necessarily right for someone at the university to draw attention to them specifically rather than just reminding everyone in general to stop being rowdy/that there are other lectures taking place in adjacent rooms etc.. (Though tbh... as far as things like libraries are concerned it seems to be French students that have the worst reputation for causing disruption).

Irish_Tom · 28 Jan 2019 at 13:32

Based purely on the BBC article, it sounds like another damning example of US academic institutions pandering to the lowest common denominator on the offence scale.

Were the two faculty members overreacting? Possibly. Was Dr Neely's email poorly written? Yes. Should she lose her job over it? No.

wolfie138 · 28 Jan 2019 at 13:36

maybe they should force people to stop talking internet in public areas too. stop people using "dank" and "rocking" stupidly, or making up **** like thicc and fleek etc.

dowie · 28 Jan 2019 at 13:36

Irish_Tom said:
Were the two faculty members overreacting? Possibly. Was Dr Neely's email poorly written? Yes. Should she lose her job over it? No.

I'm not sure she's lost her job per say but rather her position as director of the program?

There may or may not have been other mistakes along the way or perhaps she was mediocre (in that role, not necessarily in her teaching or research) anyway and so this perhaps just became the nail in the coffin for her as program director. Of course it is also quite possible that they've gone for a knee jerk reaction since the story has got some publicity and there is a race angle that they need to be seen to react strongly too etc...

Irish_Tom · 28 Jan 2019 at 13:38

dowie said:
I'm not sure she's lost her job per say but rather her position as director of the program?

There may or may not have been other mistakes along the way or perhaps she was mediocre (in that role, not necessarily in her teaching or research) anyway and so this perhaps just became the nail in the coffin for her as program director. Of course it is also quite possible that they've gone for a knee jerk reaction since the story has got some publicity and there is a race angle that they need to be seen to react strongly too etc...

Ah, fair enough.

I guess context is key, but in light of similar events at other US Universities recently, it does appear to be a system issue.

Raymond Lin · 28 Jan 2019 at 13:39

Does she have a problem with noise? the language used or race?

I am not sure what the problem is...Is it so that so everyone in the room can also know what they are talking about? What if the language used was Sign Language instead?!

dowie · 28 Jan 2019 at 13:49

Raymond Lin said:
Does she have a problem with noise? the language used or race?

Both noise and the language used it seems. Whether or not race has come into it or not is unknown. She could have addressed the noise issue and left the language issue out of the e-mail as the language issue is a non-issue and a (perhaps irrational) irritation for the faculty members to have. She was silly to have called out and a subset of students of a particular nationality perhaps made them to feel uncomfortable, unwelcome etc.. which really isn't a good thing at all given she is supposed to be the program director and so perhaps has some pastoral responsibilities to some extent and/or (I'd assume) is perhaps the default "tutor" for these taught post grads.

Eurofighter · 28 Jan 2019 at 15:45

Would make things easier if more people spoke English, makes sense to have 1 language that everyone can speak, good practice innit, a company they work for will probably want them to speak English.

h4rm0ny · 28 Jan 2019 at 17:17

Eurofighter said:
Would make things easier if more people spoke English, makes sense to have 1 language that everyone can speak, good practice innit, a company they work for will probably want them to speak English.

I wouldn't start pushing the rationalist angle too hard, if I were you. I don't know Cantonese, but Mandarin is a FAR more logical language than English. If I were going to pick a single global language, it would probably be that. (English alphabet and writing, though!).

Anyway, on topic, the first thing I thought was that the two approaching her were worried about security / intellectual property. Is it an institution with a lot of scientific research? And that she was making a good faith effort to either warn Chinese students about the prejudice or to blow the whistle on such attitudes.

Frankly, I think the focus would more be on the two who had issues with the language in the first place than her for warning what they'd said.

ttaskmaster · 28 Jan 2019 at 17:43

Diagro · 28 Jan 2019 at 17:51

To be honest, it did always annoy when when students would not speak English. Mainly because I know for a fact some where being very rude about fellow peers right Infront of them.. but in their own language.

Completely unacceptable. Should speak English so we all know when we are being insulted lol

shadow_boxer · 28 Jan 2019 at 18:28

Nothing wrong with speaking in their native language.