It was recently announced that USC was deconstructing the German Department. Dean Howard Gillman, the man responsible for the decision, in the face of outcries of injustice, emphasized the fact that, even though the department will be closed, the opportunity to learn the language would not be impeded, and the remaining (two) faculty of the German Department will be assimilated into other areas. However, the German Department is about so much more than simply the language. It's about literature, theory, culture, art, science, engineering.

So, basically, all the students currently majoring in German, or who wanted to major or minor in German, are now screwed out of a diverse educational experience since there are now only two faculty left.

Although I have no direct affiliation with the German Department, and I represent them in no official capacity, I was still shocked and outraged by this decision. As a student of the humanities at USC, I couldn't help but be disturbed by the situation (the situation being that, out of the top-tier schools--to which USC loves to invite comparison--USC will be the only one without a German Department, except for MIT and Caltech). I can’t help but wonder if the dissolution of the German Department is an indication of a fundamental shift in priorities on the part of University of Southern California: the kind of priority shift that will not only undermine the diverse intellectual lives of every student currently on campus, but continue to undermine the lives of prospective students as well. The elimination of the German Department sends the student body, and the larger academic community, the message that USC is not interested in a diverse range of scholarly interests.

In recent years, the German Department has experienced the termination of their Ph.D. program, hiring freezes, and retiring faculty. Without the support of the university to promote the graduate program or to replace retired professors, the German Department has experienced a slow choke hold that ultimately resulted in a "cost-benefit analysis" that determined it was no longer viable as an autonomous program. The administration suffocated the vibrancy of the German Department in the years leading up to the results that mandated the current decision.

The potential trickle down effect that might be seen in other small humanities departments across the campus in coming years is a scary prospect. For example, in light of our Second Wave Feminist culture, will the Gender Studies Department be deemed unnecessary? Will Art History finally get its way and the Visual Studies program will be disbanded, too? Both are small programs. And I'm attached to each through a certification program, so the possibility feels all too real.

So, I tried to protest.

After the initial buzz and national media coverage of the situation, the issue seemed to disappear within a week. I thought a zombie walk was exactly what this campus needed. We were going to deliver letters to key members of the administration in full zombie regalia. The fact that we would be a mob and some of would be zombies would add visibility to the issue, I though. Although, I made it clear that if people didn't want to dress up at zombies, that was okay, too. Everyone was welcome. We just wanted people to walk with us. So I made some flyers and distributed them in the main humanities building. I made a Facebook group. I made a Facebook event. I even spent $5 to advertise on Facebook. I also bought some zombie flesh makeup. I wrote a letter and sent it to the Association of English Graduate Students listserv asking if anyone wanted to piggyback on my letter (no response) or if people wanted to write their own letter (only one person did) and have me deliver it.

I had 6 people (including myself) say there were going to show up.

On the morning of April 23rd, though, all but one other person canceled, and I would have been the only one dressed as a zombie. So it no longer seemed worth zombie-fying myself.

The administration got word of the protest and stationed security guards at every office in the ADM building we had planned to visit and deliver the letters of protest.

So here's the scene:

Me and another grad student in Art History named Maria (meeting for the first time) show up in front of Tommy Trojan. There's no one else. So we walk to the ADM building. There's a security guard in the hallway.

Security Guard: "Are you two with the zombie walk?"

Us: "Yeah."

Security Guard: "Where are the zombies?"

Us: "No zombies. Just us. No one else showed up."

Security Guard: "That's a shame. I really wanted to see the zombies."

This happened three times at three different offices.

The shame of it all: the walk to deliver the letters only took 20 minutes. If we had had a mob, and took the route around campus I had planned, it would have (maybe) taken 45 minutes (an hour, tops). But people were like, "It's a bad time at the end of the semester." Whatever. It was two weeks before the end of term. And it's an hour of your life to protest something worthy and relevant to life at USC.

What worries me most is the message that the downgraded (zombie) walk sent to the administration. Because only two of us showed up, it tells them that it's okay to create a slow choke-hold on small humanities departments and then dissolve those departments without even telling the faculty first. (Oh yeah, did I mention that yet? This decision was handed down without even so much as a consultation with the faculty first. Most of the German Department faculty found out about the closing of the dept from their students.)

So yeah... Short of writing a letter to the editor of the campus newspaper, The Daily Trojan, I did everything I could to try to fight the decision. And now that I'm leaving USC for a year, I fear for what I will come back to--or rather, what won't be here for me to back to...

Labels: apathy, closing the german department, grad school, los angeles, news, protest, real life, usc, zombie walk

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