Postcard campaign has reached thousands of social media users including national celebrities
By Katie Langan
After a postcard campaign highlighting the potential closure of UoA's language department was launched by LLMVC staff at the end of last week,
societies have started to spread the word on social media.
The Spanish and Latin American Society have attracted a great deal of interest on Instagram, receiving nearly 900 likes on their post promoting the campaign.
The hashtag #SaveUoALanguages is being used to share the post and related content across all social media platforms.
The post titled “Save Our Languages” has been shared by societies at many universities,
students and alumni, all showing solidarity with the campaign.
Some famous faces have also expressed concern on social media, including Scottish folk singer Iona Fyfe, who shared the post on Instagram and X.
She commented that the “integrated study of languages, culture, customs and traditions” are
important to language education and that cutting these degrees would be
“a huge loss” for the university.
There have been expressions of outrage and concern by students over future of
modern languages in the UK and wondering which department will be axed next.
The Spanish and Latin American Society has prepared template postcards to make the
campaign more accessible to all. Options of postcards to send to each email address have
been prepared by committee members which state benefits of languages to the university,
graduates and wider society.
Thanks to the attention the post has received, the inboxes of UoA Princpal George Boyne, Senior VP Karl Leydecker, and LLMVC Head of School Chris Collins have been filled with postcards
containing personal messages of support for the languages department.
A response sent by Karl Leydecker to some students
detailed that students’ voices will be listened to when the time comes to make decisions.
The campaign is a success story so far, having raised awareness of the potential changes
and called upon management to listen to students. However, societies involved in putting
pressure on management are urging people to keep sending postcards to them and to share
their stories on social media using #SaveUoALanguages.
Students will have the opportunity to speak to Professor Leydecker Monday at 6 pm, after AUSA's AGM. You can buy a free ticket here: https://aberdeen.native.fm/event/reconvened-agm/212821
The event will be held in KCG7.
You can send a postcard at https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1zWC95v3maFzezHQDxRFw28Xg5B447H0l
