Date: Sat, 05 Jun 1999 13:40:15 +0200
From: Elisabeth Burr <he229bu@unidui.uni-duisburg.de>
Subject: Duisburg: report and plea for more support
First of all a really big thanks to everybody who has protested
against the closure of Italian at Duisburg university stressing
Humanities Computing activities in our department.
As I have been asked to report on what happened to the protest
which was sent to the Rektor of Duisburg University on
behalf of Italian Studies and Humanities Computing I am
trying to give some sort of report.
Report:
At my last meeting with the Rektor he told me that loads
of protest-mails had reached him and that they are still
traying to sort them and translate the ones which have
reached him in Italian.
The impression I got from our talk is that he now knows
that there is Humanities Computing. Our Rektor is an en-
gineer and we must allow for his never having been in con-
tact with our field.
The other impression is that he got interested in the subject
because he asked me to give him some information from
which he can gather whether HC would fit into the new
set up the university is working at . I sent him the URLs of
ACO*HUM for the composition of HC and of King's and
Groningen as two different models of BAs in HC.
Italian is still not saved because our dean has convinced the
rest of the members of the faculty's steering board that the
only solution for the faculty to survive the cuts is closing
down Italian.
I am of the opinion, however, that we should not give up
a subject which is devoted to one of the European langua-
ges, literatures and cultures and we should not think that
our salvation is offering our services to Engineers and
Technicians (we will be reduced to a language institute
doing just language courses). Instead we have to keep
what is there and have to have in mind to expand it to other
European languages, literatures and cultures even with a
reduced staff, taking the opportunity to rethink our contents
and teaching.
Plea for more support:
As final decision has been postponed until the 22nd of June
and a tendency can now be seen that one of the strong points
of our university is to be:
"COLlaborative Learning in Intelligent Distributed Environments"
and "Multimedia"
I allow myself to ask for more support. It would be really useful
if you could write again on behalf of Humanities computing and
of Italian, stressing the point of Multiculture, multilinguality in
a global world and of Humanities Computing as a component of
"COLlaborative Learning in Intelligent Distributed Environments"
and "Multimedia" and the innovative actions the Italian department
has been taking in this direction.
As subject please indicate "Italian, COLLIDE, Multimedia"
The best language for writing is English.
It would be really good, if you could send your mails to our Dean:
Prof. Dr. phil. Siegried Juettner
Dekan des FB 3
he292ho@uni-duisburg.de
and a copy of it to our Vice-Dean:
Prof. Dr. phil. Heiner Puerschel
puerschel@uni-duisburg.de
to
Prof. Dr. Axel Hunger
Prorektor fuer Lehre, Studium und Studienreform
hunger@uni-duisburg
to
Prof. Dr. Heinz Hoppe
Prorektor fuer Forschung und wiss. Nachwuchs
hoppe@informatik.uni-duisburg.de
With best regard and thanks for your help
Elisabeth Burr
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PD Dr'in Elisabeth Burr
FB 3/Romanistik Gerhard-Mercator-Universitaet
Geibelstrasse 41 47048 Duisburg
+49 203 3791957 Elisabeth.Burr@uni-duisburg.de
http://www.uni-duisburg.de/FB3/ROMANISTIK/PERSONAL/Burr/burr.htm
Editor of:
http://www.uni-duisburg.de/FB3/ROMANISTIK/home.html
http://www.uni-duisburg.de/FB3/SILFI/home.html
http://www.uni-duisburg.de/FB3/DRV/home.html
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