Bacon's Rebellion

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What the Teaching of Tibetan Tells Us about UVa

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James A. Bacon
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by James A. Bacon

Let’s face it, as much as Americans love the Dalai Lama, there’s a probably a limited appetite in the United States for learning the Tibetan language. As long as the dude speaks English, that’s good enough for most of us. Not surprisingly, according to the Modern Language Association, only 109 students enrolled in Tibetan language courses in 2009 across the entire U.S.

Amazingly, though, a search of the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition database — it’s unbelievable what you can find online, isn’t it? — shows that 20 different U.S. universities teach Tibetan at one level or another. And the University of Virginia is one of them.

It turns out that UVa’s Tibet Center, which integrates the study of Tibetan language and religion, is a pretty big player in the world of Tibetan studies, enrolling between 15 and 25 students at any point. Still, given the fact that the program offers three different language courses (Elementary, Intermediate and Advanced Tibetan), it’s pretty safe to assume that no more than a handful of students are enrolled per course.

Speaking from an economic perspective, that’s a major under-utilization of resources. One professor, only a handful of students. So, what’s a university to do? Cut the program? Not UVa. The answer is to expand the program by taking it online. Starting this fall, the University will offer Tibetan language courses to Duke University students in a new distance-learning venture “aimed at broadening the availability of low-visibility languages.” In return, UVa students will have the opportunity to enroll in a Duke class teaching Haitian Creole, according to a March 2013 article in Duke Today.

“Less commonly taught languages are no less important for being infrequently taught,” said Meredith Jung-En Woo, dean of UVa’s College of Arts & Sciences. “It is through new languages that we gain the entree to other cultures. Esoteric as some of these cultures may appear, in studying them we also learn new truths about our culture and ourselves.”

The partnership with Duke probably makes sense. It’s not clear from the article whether any money will change hands when one university’s students enroll in the other university’s courses. But, at a minimum, the arrangement increases the language options available to UVa students. Anyone who wants to study Haitian Creole will be able to do so via a Cisco TelePresence video conferencing system.

Through the window of this language partnership, we can see how the  University of Virginia intends to use online technology. The thrust is to increase the richness of the educational experience, not to cut costs or otherwise drive down the cost of a college education. That’s a wonderful thing if your ultimate goal is to create an elite university with a dazzling array of course offerings. It’s disappointing if your goal is to make high-quality education affordable for Virginia’s middle class.

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16 responses to “What the Teaching of Tibetan Tells Us about UVa”

  1. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    I think we’re going full circle here. What distinguishes a place like UVA from a Community College or a “business school” or the many other kinds of “schools” that are NOT 4-yr institutions of the kind that UVA is?

    Isn’t this what “Liberal Arts” means?

    Has our society and economy changed in such tremendous ways that the CONCEPT of “liberal arts” has become obsolete and uneconomic?

  2. TMT Avatar
    TMT

    My son is thinking about attending VCU & is interested in the Homeland Security & Emergency Management program. We all attended Preview Day in Richmond yesterday. I learned that VCU also has a Masters Degree program in HS&EM. The entire program is online. The University has students from all over the United States. I found that to be quite interesting.

    1. TMT Avatar
      TMT

      Just to make it clear, the Masters Program is online. The BA program is traditional.

  3. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    DJ made an incredibly important observation that the creators of online courses are well aware of and so are the savvy bricks & mortar traditionalists who don’t have their heads stuck where the light don’t shine….

    … and that is … a GOOD, well-designed online course can deliver highly personalized individual instruction tailored to meet your learning style and tempo as well as work on the points you need more time on.

    No classroom instructor can do that unless he/she ignores the others and devotes time to you.

    these courses are being found to be ideal for “hard” learners… kids that don’t learn the way other kids do and can get disruptive and bored.

    Even with a pure traditional classroom experience seeking a BS or similar can be vastly improved for those who are having a difficult time – say with something like Calculus or Grammar.

    so to a certain extent it comes down to this (IMHO of course) – what is it about a classroom instructor that makes them unique and indispensable in the digital age?

    and … it’s a sad commentary on our society when “security” is becoming the job de jure….. for young folks looking for careers.

    Now… we’re going to have even more “guards” at schools and wherever else we fear bad guys with deadly weaponry.

    grump.

  4. Darrell Avatar
    Darrell

    Tibetan? What a novel idea…

    Imagine how the world could have turned out if there had been such a program teaching Navajo in pre-WW II Japan?

  5. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    been bad darts as they say, eh?

  6. Lift Avatar
    Lift

    Viewing higher ed with its resource scarcity, I’m not sure that U.Va. can afford the luxury of doing anything that doesn’t head toward affordability for middle class families in Virginia. Leave Tibetan to the Ivies, who can offer it to U.Va. students via Coursera.

  7. DJRippert Avatar
    DJRippert

    Once upon a time in the late 1970s a young first yearman decided he could not stomach another minute of Latin, having taken that language in high school. So, he dropped in on Professor Gilbert Roy and signed up for Chinese.

    Everybody thought it was very bizarre to take Chinese back then. Now, I am seen as a visionary. And all because I hated Latin.

    When some neocon half-wit of a president sends Americans to fight the Chinese in the Tibetan war for independence you’ll be happy that we have some people who know how to speak with our allies.

    1. larryg Avatar
      larryg

      or… you could have bought Rosetta Stone and forget the UVA Liberal Arts schtick.

      😉

      yes I realize back in the Neanderthal days there was no Rosetta Stone but given the same circumstance today – would you:

      1. take the UVA Chinese
      2. take the Rosetta Stone Chinese?

      bonus question: Are you “fluent” after your stint at UVA?

      😉

  8. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    I always thought that UVA was Virginia’s one Ivy League LITE!

  9. Lift Avatar
    Lift

    I took 2 years of Mandarin @ UVA and could do nothing with it when I visited Beijing. I can still count to ten…thousand hours I spent in language lab and in classroom, not to mention tuition dollars!

  10. reed fawell III Avatar
    reed fawell III

    This Tibet article caused me to pull out an old diary. Below are summarized bits of that diary. If you’re interested in relevant internet photos see:

    http://www.klausdierks.com/Himalaya/photo_documentation-1980.htm

    This fellow some years after our adventure followed our footsteps. Even years later his photos show fairly little change from more unspoiled times.

    Below is taken then edited from my 1970’s diary:

    Mike Cheney said he knew little about the route. Only that Eric Shipton found it on a reconnaissance of Everest, reported Yeti tracks at 18000 feet in the cwm above the ice fall, and that Hillary, the next westerner to walk through 10 years later in the ’60s’, called the route speculative. Cheney didn’t know who’d passed that way since, although surely westerners had.

    So my friend and I start off with little more than a map and Sherpa to somehow converse with the people of many dialects along the way until reaching the Sherpa people in the last high valley one ridge south of Tibet.

    It is hot in jungle the first day or two. Then walking steadily uphill you follow the earth. Slowly it rounds into a deep vibrant green as you climb higher, carried up and around and above layers of watery green terraces. Black oxen pull wood spade plows through the terraces, farmers moving jerkily behind them. On distant hillsides thatched villages punctuate the greenery. On reaching the first of those villages, it dawns on us that we’ve left all iron and glass behind. It’s a place much as it has always been – a place of wood and stone, waddled mud and hatch, chickens galore and wheat and grains leveled out to dry on flat stones under hot alpine sun. Few people here. Stop. Profound silence. A hawk circles far below.

    Walking now directly west, going higher, the days pass. The land steepens. Sky opens at every ridge crest then you plunge into Rhododendron forests going down. Near bottom you hear the tumult first. Rickety spans carry you across fast steams. Rhododendron on the far side rises abruptly again.

    Now we traverse ever steeper north south ridges serrated by glacial melt. Snow fields shine high and bright overhead rivers plunging down boulder strewn gorges. Mist and thunder. Everything everywhere thunders.

    After eight days we rise up into a high valley of perfect peace one ridge south of Tibet. For six days we climb this Shangri La Valley. We stop as we go. Tea with the Lama, an afternoon spent in his wind chimed silence. Not a word spoken. The air sparkles with afternoon of smiles overlooking his Lamasery world above his Tibetan Buddhist Gompa on Gaurisankar’s flanks.

    Two days higher, I’m traveling alone in mists that open suddenly. A stone monolith stands maybe 12 feet high, sun struck – the stela carved with Tibetan Buddhist prayer’s. A welcome to perhaps the worlds highest habitation, a yak pasturage encircling barren turnip and buckwheat fields. In that abandoned summer place I rest against a yak herder’s stone hut. Wild bull yak roam the high ridge. Wisps scud beneath the small back dots. Cloud shadows race down the valley, skipping over low stone walls.

    Voices, murmurs. A small door opens. A sherpa is bend beyond the door. His wife too. That night bundled in yak wool robes we huddle over yak dun fire, drinking Yak buttered Tibetan Tea. We listen to the wind howl. This howling explains the Yeti. Our hosts smile their mostly toothless smile.

    Three day later below the ice fall we get start early, climbing by headlamp. High on the ice my friend falls, recovers keeps climbing. On top he’s sick. It’s altitude. Now he can’t walk. To avoid pulmonary edema, you get people down. But without a radio it’s 14 days walking to safety going back, after down climbing steep ice. Going up over a 19000 foot pass it 4 days to Hillary’s clinic. We head higher carrying our friend. A storm catches us. This forces a bivouac at 19,000 feet on ledge. Our friend spends the night blue and unconscious. After midnight the storm abates. We manhandle our friend down to the valley floor. It’s remarkable. Within an hour down low he’s like a fish put back into the water. He’s walking. We keep going.
    —

    I was stuck some time ago reading about Teresa Sullivan’s efforts to combine the strengths of many disciplines into single courses taught at UVA. Her effort is to build within each course a learning experience whose whole is far more broader and powerful than its parts would otherwise be.

    The power and interaction of insights within these holistic courses also can be magnified by the incredible array of technologies available to the builders of those courses, those who teach, and those who learn from them.

    This too reminded me of my climbing experiences. How each climb or adventure could lead me in so many directions – from anthropology to religion to art to flora and fauna to geology to psychology to photography and public speaking to leadership, the list goes on and on.

    So one trip can become a whole life. And so too can one UVA course taught this way become the engine for whole life of endeavor for a student.

    Imagine then the benefit of many courses taught this way and one quickly appreciates the power of President Sullivan’s idea and initiative.

    1. reed fawell III Avatar
      reed fawell III

      PS – think about UVA meditation Center folks joke about. It’s no joke at all, done right.

  11. reed fawell III Avatar
    reed fawell III

    To experience the flavor of travel in these regions during this period read the masterpiece by Peter Matthiessen titled The Snow Leopard, first published in 1978.

  12. reed fawell III Avatar
    reed fawell III

    More 1970s RF III Diary Impressions:

    Kathmandu thrives out of doors. It’s a scene of frenetic action amid narrow high walled lanes and open squares where hordes dodge, run, and knot amid carts, rickshaws and cattle, all of it bathed in hot light – Lamas in bright orange robes and leather thronged sandals, the waifs wide eyed in smudged faces, the brown oiled skinned teamsters under baskets woven whipcord tight, the uniformed school girls giggling and prancing round aged bent women in dark cloth girdled in rainbow fabric buckled with silver.

    Shafts of bright light filter this frenetic scene. Shards of brilliance speckle the dust rising from the throng and splotch iridescent swatches of color about like a Constable sky passing overhead on a journey to a distant place.

    The high walled lanes like spokes to a hub converge on a Bazaar encircled by stalls niched into buildings of carved wood, mortise, and thatch. Here the merchants squat stand, and argue, to deal, bargain, and trade the flour, grain, and cloth that stock the small shops and spill over stone pavement.

    Kathmandu is bright, intense motion that burns in ritual dance, a city born of instinct, prophecy and revelation, feeding on itself, yet self-replenishing.

  13. reed fawell III Avatar
    reed fawell III

    GENESIS on a Lowland Walk on a Journey to One Ridge South of Tibet –

    The Himalayas, children of an ancient marriage between two continents. They were birthed when India’s lowland plains moving across a primal sea thrust up against the far higher Asian rim. Where the two continents collided, the rivers of what is now Tibet ran turbulent over the rim of Asia and slashed chasms deep into the Indian hills rising up from below.

    But the hills kept coming and they crumpled ever higher as the came, and the torrents rushing down off the Tibetan edge grew ever more violent, stripping the rising hills down to their bones buried into the earth before.

    Great mountains rose up out the hills, and an age of ice descended. Monster ice slid out of their high mountain lairs. Glacial snouts grinding down carved gorges and gouged bowls and left the earth’s bones high and exposed, ramparts and ridges and peaks of stone left jagged against the sky.

    Today the great plinths soar naked and defiant over the cirques and gorges. Glacier melt waters again rush madly down the gorge bottoms far below, headed for the lands of Indian that started all the trouble yet now lay hazy in the heat of the far distant hills.

    The sculptor’s waste still roils off that high and stubborn Asian rim. It’s mad and it’s boulder strewn and its murderous, shot through with the scree and debris from the Geologic War that still rages high overhead. So rivers still rip and slash their way down until their narrow wash thins and spreads ever more gently across India’s plains and deltas to become holy even.

    But the Himalayas now dwarf the Himalayan wall that birthed them. So, walking even lowland ridges the pilgrim finds the going steep and long, a morning’s walk rising from 5000 to 9000 feet then steeply down again.

    To climb these slants he bends to a stony track in a moist heavy heat. Soon he’s enshrouded in steam and sweat. A throb settles like a hot stone in his calves. His eyes blink and sting with droplets of sweat. Going higher, his tongue thickens. It’s sandpaper rough. Often he must stop and throw his pack off his shoulders’ ache and breath deep before he again lurches forward with hands on knees and he humps the load higher and higher on trembling thighs and awkward boots that stumble along.

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