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All hope is not lost for Berkeley Extension’s English Language Program that was terminated by campus officials in January. 

At the request of Academic Senate Chair Ron Gronsky, the Senate’s committee that oversees Berkeley Extension will investigate the decision to eliminate the English Language Program (ELP), which is one of the oldest and most respected programs of its kind in the country.  

“We’ll be asking for the basis on how the decision was made,” said Council Chair David Dornfeld, cautioning that since Extension is separate from the main campus, the Academic Senate has less influence over the fate of the program. “This will be a consolatory process,” Dornfeld said. “The dean and provost have a great amount of autonomy in how these programs run.” 

Berkeley’s English Language Program, which has offered English instruction to international students since 1973, has used the Berkeley name to attract students from mostly influential, upper-class families. ELP employs 32 teachers and 12 administrators, and in 2002 enrolled 2,733 students from 54 countries. Since Jim Sherwood, dean of University Extension, announced the closure of the program, effective May 7, teachers have been demanding an explanation for the decision. Dean Sherwood insists that his decision was based on a thorough evaluation of the program. On Thursday afternoon, ELP staff and about 100 students rallied on outside California Hall questioning the sincerity of the evaluation. 

“No one observed our classrooms, no one looked at our curriculum guides. Whatever purported review was done, we were totally unaware of it,” said ELP teacher Kimberly Green. She added that staff requests for a copy of the review had been rebuffed. 

Sherwood said the evaluation consisted of at least 30 interviews with University Extension and UC officials over several months, but was never made into a written report. The evaluation, he added, was part of the process for formulating a Strategic Plan towards realigning Extension’s curriculum closer to the university’s core mission. 

Using Strategic Plan buzzwords, “Berkeley Quality, Berkeley Appropriate,” Sherwood said he eliminated ELP because English immersion programs had grown more abundant and teaching English was not an appropriate mission for the university. The Strategic Plan, offered guidelines for reviewing programs, including student input and a curriculum analysis, but Sherwood said those didn’t apply in the case of ELP because he was only gauging its fit with UC. 

“I never questioned the quality of the program, I just determined it wasn’t something we should be offering,” he said. 

Dornfeld said his group will study relevant documents and, depending on the findings, might offer an opinion to the Academic Senate. 

The closure of the ELP appeared to lower morale at Berkeley Extension, already devastated by a series of layoffs. The Extension staff heckled Sherwood twice during a question and answer session at Wednesday’s annual Extension meeting and when two employees began arguing if the ELP issue should be dominating the forum, Sherwood intervened, saying “I don’t want to see this disintegrate into anything it shouldn’t be.” 

Since 2002, Extension has closed its San Francisco headquarters and eliminated 120 positions—slightly more than a third of its roster. It still carries a $4.7 million budget deficit, Sherwood said, which he is required to close by 2005. 

Sherwood said ELP was projected to lose $476,883 this year, but added financial reasons didn’t factor into his decision and he didn’t anticipate the need for future layoffs to get make Extension profitable.  

ELP teachers questioned his accounting and his motivations. Teachers had filed two unfair labor practices against the university, for failing to alert the teachers of labor policy changes.  

“Considering the administrative mess they’re in, they couldn’t have picked a more convenient time to close the program,” Green said in an earlier interview.