by Akemi Tamanaha, Associate Editor
A 16-unit Cantonese Certificate of Achievement program at the City College of San Francisco has been delayed. Advocates say that it was inappropriately withdrawn.
The certificate program was originally slated to be offered during the 2023-2024 academic year but now students must wait until 2024/25 to enroll. The 2023/24 course catalog will include a note stating that the Cantonese certificate program will be offered in 2024/25.
Alan Wong, President of the Board of Trustees for the City College of San Francisco, who helped push the certificate program forward said advocates were shocked to see it stall.
“There’s so many people that were excited and celebrating and expecting that this was here for our community,” Wong said in an interview with AsAmNews.
About one tenth of San Francisco’s population speaks Cantonese. In a press release, Wong argued that the program will help “train the next generation of public safety, healthcare, and social workers” to serve Cantonese-speaking community members in San Francisco.
The need for Cantonese-speaking public servants is something Wong has experienced first-hand. He was once approached by an elderly woman with a bruised eye during a visit to St. Luke’s Hospital in San Francisco. The woman had been attacked but could not communicate with police officers when they arrived. When she saw Wong, she asked him for help communicating to officials.
It’s a story that comes to mind whenever he thinks about the importance of language programs in higher education.
“It’s not just about the preservation of a language or history, but really about the practical needs of our community and ensuring that they have the services that they need are immigrants in our senior community,” Wong said.
The proposed 16-unit program was born out of a desire to save Cantonese language classes, which were almost cut in 2021 because of budget constraints.
In January 2022, Wong introduced a policy calling for the creation of a Cantonese certificate program to the Board of Trustees, who voted unanimously to approve it. Faculty members in early 2022 crafted the certificate program, which then went through all of the standard committee processes, Wong told AsAmNews.
The College’s Curriculum Committee recommended a 9 unit Conversational Cantonese Certificate on September 28, 2022 and a 16 unit Chinese Cantonese Certificate on October 12, 2022. Both programs were ratified by the Board of Trustees on Nov. 10, 2022.
But on November 23, nearly two weeks later, the Curriculum Committee withdrew its support for the 16-unit program, opting to continue with just the 9-unit conversational program.
The Curriculum Committee claimed it wanted to revert the 16-unit program back to draft status in order to add more grammar classes. Advocates did not understand why the committee could not approve the current 16-unit proposal, which weaved together exisitnig classes without adding new ones, for the 2023/24 academic year and make changes later.
During a March 2023 Board of Trustees meeting, World Languages and Cultures Department Chair Diana Garcia-Denson confirmed that the 16-unit program would not be included in the 2023/24 catalog.
At a recent June 22 board meeting, the City College’s legal counsel said that it was inappropriate to withdraw a program already approved by the Board of Trustees. They claimed that the Curriculum Committee, “does not really have that kind of role in order to overturn the Board’s vote.” They also noted there were “ways” to present a change to the board without withdrawing the program completely.
The current solution is to include a notation in the 2023/24 catalog that says a 16-unit Cantonese certificate program will be coming 2024/25. Wong believes the notation is an important inclusion.
“Many people may may go into our catalog and say, ‘Hey, I thought this was going to happen, where is it?’ And so the notation is a recognition and acknowledgment that it was supposed to be there but it’s gonna be there in the future and that we’re working towards that goal,” Wong said.
Cantonese language classes are already in high demand at the city college. Once the new certificate is approved and implemented, Wong believes the whole Cantonese language program will “naturally grow.”
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