Professor George Boyne, Principal, University of Aberdeen

Professor Karl Leydecker, Senior Vice-Principal

Professor Chris Collins, Head of the School of Language, Literature, Music and Visual Culture

Dear Sirs,

We, the undersigned, are all alumni of the University of Aberdeen. We are proud to have attended such an institution. We are writing to express our deep concern about the coming proposed changes to the School of Language, Literature, Music, and Visual Culture. Should the university shut down some of its language degrees, the closest university to offer these degrees would be 80 miles away in St Andrews. 

In particular, the University of Aberdeen has a duty as a centre of learning in the North East of Scotland to offer key degrees such as languages for students in the region. It is rumoured that courses in Spanish, French, German and Gaelic are under threat. We are concerned that the next generation in the North East of Scotland will be left without the opportunity to learn modern languages and this is likely to worsen the chronic shortage of modern language teachers in Aberdeenshire. ‘Degrees in languages also present the opportunity to study the history and cultures of the countries where they are spoken, and the compulsory year abroad allows students to explore and become familiar with life in that country.. These degrees are an essential part of the educational offering of the ancient universities, and the withdrawal of these degrees would make Aberdeen the only of Britain and Ireland’s ancient universities not to offer these degrees. 

Children and young people in the North East of Scotland would face the structural inequality of underfunded, understaffed and lacking language provision compared to the rest of the country, both in its schools and its universities. Most likely, they would be forced to move away from home in order to undertake a language, reinforcing the gap between urban and rural Scotland in terms of opportunities and access. Aberdeen has a duty to be both an outward-looking international university, encouraging values such as tolerance, while being to offer those opportunities to people across the region that it serves. Without a thriving languages department, Aberdeen would be the poor relation of the ancient universities. The French, German, Italian and Spanish Consulates in Scotland have raised these concerns, as have the All Party Parliamentary Group for Modern Languages. We urge the University to reassure the UofA community and the North East more widely that no redundancies are to be made in the languages departments, and that no existing undergraduate language degrees will be withdrawn. 

Yours,