Dear fellow students of Universitas Rothica Allbritonia,
Many of you have, but more of you have not, heard of the heartbreaking news that Mrs. Shirley Lawrence, East Asian Studies Program Coordinator, will retire in December.
To those of you who know her, you would know how much she loves the East Asian Studies program and its majors, how much she devotes to keep the program running, and it should be obvious to you what leaving her job would mean to her. North and South College are currently looking for someone to substitute her. Her substitute will have much less work responsibilities, and that means much of the East Asian Studies program will be left uncovered. For those of you who come to Wesleyan specifically because of the East Asian Studies Program, which is one of the first and finest in this country, this is a direct attack on your interests. The leaving of Mrs. Lawrence is a significant step towards the shrinking of the East Asian Studies Programs. I imagine very soon they would name the Mansfield Freeman East Asian Studies Program after whoever is going to pay for the renovation of South College. Poor Davenports, now they are all ’britons. I am sure not long from now the administration will sell the stone lions in front of the porch, or move them in front of the President’s House.
Now the administration may retort and say that these involuntary retirements are for the best, for we are in a financial crisis. I am surprised that these people, who are earning more than $450,000 know that we are in a financial crisis. So, we, the students, are paying you $450,000 dollars a year, and the best you can do in a financial crisis is to fire people? I’d rather fire the administration and drink a beer from their little freezers in their offices.
Now that the Freeman Family are no longer considered a significant target of fund-raising by school, it seems that now they can do whatever with the East Asian Program, founded and funded by the Freemans, they can start dismantling this program and abandoning its core components. I wonder what may be done to save the jobs of people like Mrs. Shirley Lawrence.
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