I want to let Forum members know about an online petition to save Japanese language courses offered at the Norwegian University for Science and Technology (NTNU), where I teach (for the record, my courses in political science and the NTNU Japan Program are not directly affected and are in a different faculty). The reasons for the proposed elimination of these courses relate to budgetary and other issues in the Faculty of Humanities.

Related to the point I have made in other recent posts regarding the lack of confidence among Japanese elites about Japan's place in the world, I know that many will be quick to see this as evidence of declining interest in Japan as China rises. I want reassure anyone who may think so that nothing could be further from the truth. The Japanese language courses, even after they doubled their capacity in 2010, have always been oversubscribed with students wanting to register.
Moreover, the proposal to cut the Japanese courses also includes cutting a Chinese culture class that was only recently established. In fact, what this situation really shows is that often interest and support for Chinese and Japanese are linked and synergistic rather than competing. Indeed, if Chinese language courses could be established that would support the expansion of Japanese language courses and in combination both sets of courses would support the establishment of an East Asian Studies major, thereby providing greater institutionalization of these courses.

In any case, I hope you will consider signing the petition. If you do, I would encourage you to leave a comment about why you think Japanese language education is important, not least of all for business people, scientists and engineers (NTNU is after all a science and engineering university at its core) working in Japan. I would also encourage you to share this with others who might be interested.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/japanese-at-ntnu/

I should note that the humanities faculty is scheduled to decide about the fate of these classes on the 20th, so time is of the essence.

Sincere Thanks,

Paul Midford

P.S. For anyone who can read Norwegian, here you can find out more about the media coverage of this issue:

http://www.universitetsavisa.no/student/article11799.ec
e

http://www.universitetsavisa.no/politikk/article11815.e
ce

http://www.forskning.no/blog/vangsnes/309521