Fearing that U.C. Santa Cruz will eliminate its Hebrew classes as part of continuing budget cuts, a group of students, faculty and Jewish community leaders has started a campaign to preserve the language courses.
“We have to hope the pressure will be effective,” part-time Hebrew lecturer Hava Ratinsky said.
Since early fall, UCSC officials have been searching for the “least painful” ways to make $100,000 in required cuts from its language department for the 1997-98 school year, said Dean of Humanities Jorge Hankamer .
“Everything is under consideration,” he said this week.
But Hebrew and Russian are the most vulnerable of the eight languages offered at the university because they have the lowest enrollments, the dean added.
Hankamer, who is awaiting recommendations from a task force on budget cuts, will make a decision by Jan. 1.
The campaign to save the courses began in early November after Hankamer informed Ratinsky of the possible reductions.
Since then, Hebrew-class supporters have met with Hankamer and other university officials. They have written letters and posted “Don’t Kill Hebrew” fliers. They had gathered more than 600 signatures — mostly from students — on a petition as of late last week.
“We believe that a campus committed to ethnic diversity with over 2,000 Jewish students must offer Hebrew,” the petition reads in part.
Lorin Troderman, director of Santa Cruz Hillel, is helping to lead the effort to save the 28-year-old Hebrew program.
“Hebrew is in such a tenuous position. By cutting the classes, there’s nothing left,” he said. “It’s at the barest it can possibly be right now.”
Of all the languages taught at UCSC, only Hebrew is taught on a two-year cycle. Beginning Hebrew — comprising sections 1, 2 and 3 — is offered one year. Advanced Hebrew — sections 4, 5 and 6 — is offered in the alternating years.
Karen Weiser, a senior literature major enrolled in the advanced Hebrew class, considers these courses one of the few ways that UCSC helps foster Jewish identity on the 10,000-student campus.
“UCSC has very few classes relating to anything Jewish, maybe three,” said Weiser, who may pursue a doctorate in comparative literature. “If there wasn’t Hebrew at UCSC, I don’t know if I would have gone here.”
The university’s other specifically Jewish courses focus on the Holocaust, on modern Jewish intellectual history and on Jewish American writers. There is no overall Judaic studies program at UCSC.
Troderman said solid academic reasons support the need to retain Hebrew.
Studying the language helps prepare students who choose to participate in the university’s year-abroad study program in Israel, he said. And Hebrew courses are necessary for students, such as Weiser, who are considering graduate work entailing a Hebrew background.
The language-department cuts are part of an overall reduction in state funds to the U.C. campuses since the early 1990s, Hankamer said. Last year, the language department was forced to cut 10 percent from its annual budget of just over $1 million. This year, Hankamer said, another 10 percent needed to be cut.
The $100,000 translates into eliminating the equivalent of 20 class sections.
Eliminating the annual three sections of Hebrew — ending Hebrew classes altogether — would save $15,000 in salary and administrative costs.
Average enrollment in language classes hovers just below 20, Hankamer said, although it can range from 35 in a first-year Spanish course to five in a third-year Russian course.
Beginning Hebrew started last year with 25 students and ended with under 15. Advanced Hebrew, which is currently being offered, has nine students. Hankamer estimated this figure will shrink to six or seven students by the end of the 1996-97 academic year.
“That a whole year of Hebrew is for fewer than 10 — that’s a problem,” Hankamer said.
Though Hankamer hasn’t yet made any decisions regarding potential budget cuts, he said, there are considerations besides enrollment that will figure into his final move.
Hebrew, Japanese and Chinese are the only languages offered at UCSC that are not Indo-European, he said.
And while Russian and Hebrew have similarly low enrollments, Hankamer said, he understands that Hebrew courses are important to a local ethnic community in a way that most languages aren’t.
Options other than eliminating Hebrew do exist.
The classes could, for example, be opened up to nonstudents through the university’s extension division.
“It occurred to me that we might be able to make Hebrew more viable if we were able to expand the interested clientele,” Hankamer said.
If the dean chooses to eliminate Hebrew in the end, however, supporters said they are willing to appeal to the chancellor for a reversal.
“I respect that this is a really tough decision they have to make,” Troderman said. “I want to be very optimistic.”