Please register as soon as you’re sure you can attend! Merci!
Making the case for French
a workshop for Wisconsin French teachers
Saturday, January 21, 2012, 9am-1:30pm
Learn to reach out and educate your community stakeholders — students, parents, administrators, school board members and local media — about the practical uses of French and the need to protect and enhance its place in our schools.
Bloomberg Rankings identifies French as the third-most-important business language in the world after English and Mandarin. And in the last 10 years, the number of francophones in the world has increased by 10% (from 200 to 220 million). But despite these indicators, budgets for public education continue to tighten, French is being squeezed out, and many of you are struggling to keep your programs off the chopping block.
“French continues to be an important language in international business and communication, diplomacy, scientific discovery and achievement,” says Gilles Bousquet, Dean of the UW–Madison Division of International Studies, Vice Provost for Globalization, and Pickard-Bascom Professor of French.
The list of facts supporting the argument for French in our schools is a long one, as you know all too well. Yet many of our administrators, school board members and elected officials remain uninformed or tend to ignore those compelling facts when making budgetary and curricular decisions.
This workshop in January is designed to help you meet those challenges head on and to prepare us all to be more effective advocates for French instruction in Wisconsin.
UW–Madison’s Division of International Studies, Center for Interdisciplinary French Studies, Department of French & Italian and the French House invite you to this a half-day workshop.
Panelists will include:
- Gerhard Fischer, Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction
- Mark Maley, Wisconsin busineman, President of the West Bend (WI) Public Schools Foundation
- Megan Costello, Director of Communications, UW-Madison College of Letters & Science
- Jennifer Herlein, Government and Public Affairs Attaché, Quebec Delegation, Chicago
- Mary Haight, French Instructor, Madison College
- Sage Goellner, Faculty Associate, UW Division of Continuing Studies
- Jean-Francois Rochard (tentative), Deputy Cultural Attaché, Consulate General of France in Chicago
- Ritt Deitz, Executive Director, UW–Madison Professional French Masters Program
- Gilles Bousquet, Dean of the UW Division of International Studies
Strength Through Networking: Making the Case for French
Saturday, January 21, 2012, 9am-1:30pm at
The French House (map) | Parking is available in the Lake & Frances St. Ramp. (map)
The program is free to all attendees and will include panel discussions on the stakeholders in this discussion and the resources available to make ourselves heard.
Lunch is provided by the French House and co-sponsored by Vista Higher Education. Lunch will include a presentation by Ritt Deitz on “The Case for French in a Post-Francophile America.”
To register, please email Andrew Irving, Director, The French House.
