Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4 — Tuesday, March 20, 2018

An open letter to the French Department

RISHABH KEWALRAMANI | COLUMN

E

very time I log on to 
my 
Facebook 
feed, 

I 
usually 
click 
on 

roughly four or five articles 
from publications like Vox or 
Politico. They’ve made it easy 
for me and practically every 
news consumer to read the 
news. With the development 
of the Instant Article on 
Facebook, I can now click 
on specific articles and they 
will open without a load time. 
While traditional outlets have 
tried to adapt by using many of 
these same methods, it’s clear 
that the tide is changing for 
these news sources like our 
local newspaper and national 
media outlets like The New 
York Times. One doesn’t need 
to turn to the “newspaper 
death watch” to know that 
newspapers are in trouble 
from increased competition 
and a changing readership.

Perhaps 
you’re 
one 
of 

the younger millennials like 
myself, who, until recently, 
never had the opportunity 
to pay for news. Like every 
generation before us, we’ve 
grown up reading or watching 
whatever our parents did — 
whether that was the local 
news, CNN or perhaps nothing 
at all. Unlike our predecessors, 
however, when we have earned 
the opportunity to actually 
pay for the news, we have been 
inundated with free media 
options. One could easily be 
informed without ever having 
to pay for a news story. The 
internet dramatically shifted 
how we consume our news on 
top of the websites we visited 
to do so.

With 
the 
change 
from 

print, radio and TV to the 
internet came a dramatic shift 
in ad revenue services. In the 
newspaper industry, it’s fairly 
obvious: The company would 
make money by having you pay 
a nominal subscription fee and 
make more money by selling 

advertisements and space in 
the classified ads. The goal, 
at least theoretically, was to 
write a product so well that 
consumers would pay for it and 
view 
advertisements 
inside 

it. “Page One: Inside the New 
York Times” is a documentary 
about 
the 
newspaper, 
and 

it shows the rollout of the 
paywall online. Before 2010, 
individuals could access the 
news freely, without having 
to pay for an article at all. 
In order to make up for the 
decreasing 
revenue, 
The 

Times decided that making 
readers pay for their articles 
online was paramount to their 
survival, but many consumers 
simply decided to change their 
news source.

This 
phenomenon 
of 

changing news sources came 
from the expectation of not 
having to pay for anything on 
the internet. Because of the 
expectation that consumption 
would be free, users pushed 
back against the idea that 
they would have to pay for a 
news source that could easily 
be 
found 
somewhere 
else. 

And this trend is growing. 
Individuals are increasingly 
turning to social media to get 
their news. A survey from 
Pew Research Center showed 
that the gap between people 
who consume news online 
and those who read print is 
closing dramatically. Another 
statistic from that same survey 

suggests this trend isn’t going 
anywhere either: A majority of 
individuals ages 18 to 29 get 
their news online as of 2017; in 
2016 it was 50 percent.

The concern regarding the 

changing news landscape is 
how critical newspapers have 
been over the past 100 years. 
A segment on “Last Week 
Tonight with John Oliver” 
covered the importance of 
newspaper journalism. In this 
piece, he includes a hearing 
against Google’s ad revenue 
service in 2010, where you 
hear from a public official: It’s 
a great time to be a corrupt 
local politician. And the host 
John Oliver is right to say 
that a large share of coverage 
for the news is derived from 
the 
newspaper 
industry. 

But all over the country, 
newspapers are closing down 
or restructuring. Over the 
past 
10 
years, 
newspaper 

employment has dropped by 
37 percent. This means there 
are fewer journalists to cover 
the perhaps mundane — but 
important — local proceedings 
that oversee the day-to-day 
workings of political life. And 
without that watchdog role 
of those proceedings, it can 
be reasonably assumed that 
corrupt political maneuvers 
could be happening without us 
ever knowing about it.

There 
is 
hope 
for 

newspapers, though. Despite 
these 
closings, 
online 

subscriptions have gone up 
for The Times. No one knows 
exactly where the news is 
heading 
if 
the 
newspaper 

industry collapses, but they’ve 
adapted 
before 
and 
will 

hopefully adapt again. I can 
only hope that the newspaper 
industry finds a way to coexist 
with the digital world.

I

’m writing today because 
I am a good student, but 
I am scared. I’m writing 

today because in all my time 
at the University of Michigan, 
I 
have 
believed 
that 
my 

classes follow the tenets of an 
effective meritocracy where 
one can be successful if he or 
she puts in the work. However, 
that is not the case for one 
program here. Every day when 
the clock turns to 4 p.m., I 
transform 
from 
a 
student 

who thrives to a student who 
struggles to survive. I don’t 
think it would come as any 
surprise to you that French 231 
is my 4 p.m. class. Last week, 
my classmates and I got the 
opportunity to do a midterm 
course evaluation, and we 
relished 
the 
opportunity 

because so many of us honestly 
dread 
walking 
into 
that 

classroom on a daily basis. 
However, when our lecturer 
recapped the review, it quickly 
became clear that nothing 
would change when it came 
to the terrifying structure of 
the French language program 
at this University. However, 
it is important to note that 
the lecturers have very little 
autonomy when it comes to 
the curriculum. Thus, they 
do not bear the brunt of 
the responsibility for these 
shortcomings. 
Nevertheless, 

here are just a few of the 
grievances my classmates and 
I described:

1. 
Workload: 
We 
were 

told at the beginning of the 
semester to expect to spend 
two hours outside of class for 
every hour in class, which 
brings us to an expected eight 
hours a week of just French 
outside of the classroom. On 
most days, my classes go from 
8:30 or 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. With 
the amount of French work 
allotted, that would mean my 
day does not effectively start 
until 7 p.m. At a university 
that aims to create a well-
rounded student and person 
after college, this leaves little 
precious time to do those 
things that would enrich my 
education. Not to mention 
that 
if 
every 
four-credit 

class had the same amount 

of coursework, that would be 
32 hours of outside work, or 
almost a full-time job.

2. 
Flipped 
Classroom: 

A 
flipped 
classroom 
can 

be described as an inverse 
of 
traditional 
learning 

environments, 
where 

students 
learn 
through 

hands-on activities at home 
instead of through lecture. 
I understand that there are 
teaching theories that say 
that a flipped classroom is 
better for learning. However, 
they are without a doubt 
inherently 
unequal 
when 

grades are involved. Just like 
in economic terms where the 

rich can get richer because 
they can invest their wealth, 
students who are “better” at 
French going into the course 
get more out of a flipped 
classroom, because a flipped 
classroom puts the onus on the 
students to learn the language 
themselves. I have no doubt 
in my mind that if you were to 
give a test on the first day of 
class and one on the last day 
of class, the distribution of 
scores would remain the same, 
meaning the highest achiever 
on the first day would most 
likely be the highest achiever 
on the last day. When you take 
grades into account, you could 
tell who was going to get an A 
based on the first day of class.

3. Harsh Grading: When 

compared to other University 
courses and other language 
courses at the University, the 
French grading system comes 
across as truly draconian. In 
French 232 during the Winter 
Semester of 2015, 60 percent 

of students got a B or higher. 
That same number was 87 
percent, 74 percent and 86 
percent for the same level 
class in Italian, Spanish and 
Latin, respectively, and the 
comparison looks worse when 
looking at the number of As 
and A-s. From looking at this 
data, you could reach one of 
two conclusions: either French 
students are objectively worse 
students 
than 
their 
peers 

or the French program as a 
whole is too harsh. In fact, 
in that same semester, only 5 
percent of students received 
an A, or one in 20. That means 
that fewer than one person 
per section got an A. It takes 
a special amount of arrogance 
on the part of a whole program 
to believe nobody in your class 
has earned an A. By requiring 
language courses, for students 
who wish to continue their 
study of French they started 
in high school, the University 
has essentially required me to 
get something less than an A.

I 
am 
a 
high-achieving 

student 
with 
big 
dreams. 

Just the other day, I sat in 
my academic adviser’s room 
discussing my law school plans 
where every 100th decimal 
place 
of 
my 
grade 
point 

average matters. I have found 
this University to be more 
than fair to me in almost every 
respect, except for the French 
program in the Department 
of Romance Languages and 
Literatures. 
That 
program 

stresses me out, causes me to 
panic and makes me honestly 
furious. I am generally a 
content 
person, 
but 
when 

someone needlessly messes 
with my future, I am inclined 
to speak out. So, this is me 
saying something: Stop being 
the reason for my stress, and 
make it fun to learn a language 
again. Finally, to students 
choosing which language they 
want to learn here, I strongly 
advise you to stay away from 
French until real changes are 
made. Though the language 
is 
beautiful, 
the 
program 

couldn’t be more ugly.

 Pending doom of the newspaper industry?

IAN LEACH | COLUMN

Emma Chang
Joel Danilewitz

Samantha Goldstein

Elena Hubbell
Emily Huhman
Tara Jayaram

Jeremy Kaplan

Sarah Khan

Lucas Maiman

Magdalena Mihaylova

Ellery Rosenzweig

Jason Rowland

Anu Roy-Chaudhury

Alex Satola
Ali Safawi

 Ashley Zhang

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G

rowing up, my family 
had a lot of different 
animals, but perhaps 

one 
of 
the 
most 

memorable to me 
was the big ram 
we called Evander. 
Evander 
was 
a 

mean old ram and 
wouldn’t 
hesitate 

to let you know it. 
My brothers and I 
were 
terrified 
of 

Evander, as we had 
all been run down 
on more than one 
occasion. When we were 
feeling 
especially 
brave, 

we would play a game of 
chicken with him, but these 
games almost always started 
with a dare (who can back 
down from a double dog 
dare?) and ended with one of 
us in tears and an unhealthy 
amount of bruising. While 
we liked to think of it as a 
game, it didn’t do much to 
change the fact that we were 
still scared to death of him.

One day, all the sheep 

had managed to get loose, 
probably by some negligence 
involving the chain keeping 
the gate in place (hey, don’t 
look at me, I wasn’t the last 
one to lock them up). They had 
meandered down into one of 
the neighbor’s fields and after 
several hours we had rounded 
up all of them but Evander, so 
we split up and had a search 
party for him. After a couple 
hours, I stumbled into a field 
a couple miles from home and 
sitting at the edge of the field 
was my brother, lying on top 
of a sheep. As I approached, 
I could see he was covered in 
sweat and breathing pretty 
heavily — both he and the 

sheep were. I will never forget 
the look of pride he had, 
and when I asked why he 

sat there instead 
of bringing the 
sheep home, he 
simply replied: “I 
wanted to savor 
this moment.”

Upon 
being 

found, 
Evander 

had 
apparently 

charged 
my 

brother (didn’t see 
that one coming), 
and 
having 
few 

other choices, my brother was 
forced to fight back. After 
what was recounted as an 
epic battle, my brother had 
managed to down the big guy 
and then lay on top of him 
to keep him down. Or maybe 
it was to teach him a lesson. 
The story depended on if my 
mom was listening or not and 
definitely had nothing to do 
with the fact that she might 
have loved those sheep more 
than she loved us. After the 
incident, Evander’s pride was 
so hurt he never bothered my 
brother again. Shortly after, I 
too downed Evander in order 
to partake in the benefit of not 
getting run down anymore. 
This was my first experience 
that I can remember stepping 
out of my comfort zone and 
ultimately becoming a better 
person for it.

Flash forward to when 

I was accepted to attend 
the University of Michigan, 
and I found myself feeling 
a very familiar fear. I was 
terrified of going so far from 
the place I called home and 
leaving behind everyone and 
everything I knew. When it 
came down to making the final 

college decision, I liked to tell 
people it was a money matter. 
With the scholarship help from 
the University, it simply made 
sense. Deep down, I knew 
it had a lot more to do with 
facing my fears and forcing 
myself to dive headfirst into 
something about which I knew 
very little. This allowed me to 
take a huge step outside of my 
comfort zone.

I remember thinking about 

the story of Evander whenever 
I 
began 
to 
doubt 
myself, 

thinking about the pride and 
feeling of accomplishment I 
saw in my brother and later 
experienced myself. As a first-
generation student, I have had 
to step out of my comfort zone 
time and time again. Many 
times I have found myself in a 
very unfamiliar situation and 
each time I take that extra 
step, I become a slightly better 
person for it.

As 
evolving 
students, 

we must always try to push 
ourselves. We need to face 
our fears, try new things 
and step outside that comfy 
circle we often find ourselves 
becoming complacent in — and 
not just when it’s convenient 
for us, but whenever we have 
the 
opportunity. 
Without 

challenge, there will be no 
growth, and without growth, 
how can we possibly expect 
to create and contribute to 
the change and progress we 
wish to see? Because I faced 
my fears and stepped outside 
my comfort zone, I was able to 
achieve a new sense of pride I 
wouldn’t change for the world. 
A Wolverine pride.

Facing our fears

LUCAS DEAN | COLUMN

SARAH NEFF | CONTACT SARAH AT SANE@UMICH.EDU

LUCAS 
DEAN

Lucas Dean can be reached at 

lbdean@umich.edu.

Ian Leach can be reached at 

ileach@umich.edu.

It takes a special 

amount of 

arrogance on the 
part of a whole 

program to 

believe nobody 
in your class has 

earned an A. 

Rishabh Kewalramani can be 

reached at rkew@umich.edu.

 One could easily 

be informed 
without ever 

having to pay for a 

news story.

