Linguapax
Call for lecturers: Discrimination against faculty with foreign accents
The union at my university has taken up the issue of discrimination against faculty who are foreign-born or perceived to speak English with an "accent". We have had four cases in which foreign-born faculty were denied tenure solely on the basis of poor student evaluations of teaching. I also know of at least one foreign-born person denied promotion to full professor on the basis of poor student evaluations. There is concern that these evaluations reflect student prejudice which is accepted uncritically by higher administration.
I am very pleased that my union is taking up this issue. The administration has agreed to pay for an outside expert to come give a lecture to educate them and the university community about these issues. We have already suggested Bonnie Urciuoli, Rosina Lippi-Green, and Don Rubin as possible speakers, but I wanted to ask if anyone has other suggestions for scholars we could contact. If you yourself work in this area and would be willing to give a lecture or workshop on the topic, please contact me off list and send a copy of your vita: (Necessites javascript per veure aquest correu-e)
Cyndi Dunn
Associate Professor of Anthropology
Dept. of Sociology, Anthropology & Criminology
University of Northern Iowa
Cedar Falls IA 50614-0513 U.S.A.
(319) 273-6251
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