For students on the Lusophone boat

Are you a Portuguese student at Cambridge? Have you survived an endless visa application? Are you somewhere in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Maputo, or Lisbon, wondering why you can't understand a word in Portuguese, the language you studied for two bloody years? Then this blog is for you. Share your pictures, videos, worries, insiders' tips on accommodation, working, studying, and travelling. And find out that you're not the only one misusing the subjunctive. Wherever you are, document what you're up to. In English or Portuguese, it doesn't matter. As long as you keep in touch!

Thursday, 2 February 2012

Save Portuguese at Utrecht!


The Faculty of Humanities at the University of Utrecht announced that the Faculty intends to shut down its BA program in Portuguese. Effects are to be felt very soon, with possible firing of all staff members after September 2012 and a last date for enrolment of students set for September 2013. This has been sent to the national press today and appeared in one of the most respected newspapers, the NRC Handelsblad. This is being done as a reaction to imposed budget cuts. However, in the plans announced so far Portuguese is the only Department that is targeted for a full shut down. Two other BA programmes, on Arabic and on Theology will be allowed to restructure and become part of related BA Programmes. For Portuguese no such option was contemplated; neither together with Spanish, nor in terms of Latin American Studies.

SPREAD THE NEWS AND WRITE a letter of complaint addressed to:

Chair of the Board of Governance of Utrecht University
Professor Yvonne van Rooy
Bestuursgebouw
Heidelberglaan 8
3584 CS
Utrecht
Netherlands