MCLC: US students losing interest in China (1)

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US students losing interest in China (1)
I’m quoted in this piece, and quoted accurately.
But I also said a few things that aren’t quoted in the piece and that put my comments (and our enrollment figures) in context. (And suggest that “US Students Losing Interest in China” is overstating the case .)
In an email to Harney, the author of the article, I wrote, “In I think all of the years . . .  since 2003, Chinese had the third largest total enrollment of any language taught at Middlebury (Spanish is always first, French is always second). . . .  I do not know if the question to ask is, ‘Why have enrollments dropped?’ The question to ask might be, ‘Why did enrollments go way up from 2004 to 2011?’ Our enrollments the last three years (the years of the [biggest] drop) are still higher than any year before 2000.'”
In a final email, I wrote, ““Enrollments in Chinese at Middlebury are well off our all-time high (2007) but every year for more than a decade our enrollments have been double what they were in the early 1990s. So . . . enrollments in Chinese at Middlebury in the academic year, in the summer Chinese School, and in our C.V. Starr Middlebury Schools in China (Hangzhou, Beijing, Kunming) are below the all-time high but seem to be holding steady at healthy levels.”
The numbers are what they are and they are down; this story by Harney is important and informative; the drop in enrollments in Chinese language classes and in study abroad in China programs is certainly something that has my full attention as the chair of Chinese language and literature department, but at Middlebury we in Chinese ain’t all in a panic quite just yet.
Tom Moran <moran at middlebury.edu>
by denton.2 at osu.edu on March 14, 2015
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