The first anniversary of the September 11 tragedy finds our country still grappling with increased security measures at airports and other public places and still largely unconvinced, or unaware, of the importance of teaching world languages and cultures at all levels of American education. Coloradans, for example, are being asked to vote again on an "English for the Children" bill, just when we should be thinking how to expand our citizens’ knowledge of foreign languages and cultures. Numerous hearings in Washington D.C. have emphasized for lawmakers the critical need for language and culture expertise, especially in the less commonly taught languages, and various task forces have repeated this message, but no concerted national policy seems likely to be adopted to address this need in the near future. It does seem likely that some of the recent cuts to federal programs that support foreign language education will be restored to former levels—but it is very much one step forward, two back.

At the spring "Legislative Day" held by the Joint National Committee on Languages/National Council for Languages and International Studies, delegates from over fifty foreign language professional organizations met with Susan Weiman, a media consultant, about ways to influence public policy. She noted that a structured public affairs campaign forces the media to pay attention to a cause, forces policy makers to re-examine the cause, thus affecting legislation and funding, and allows you to control the way your cause is seen in the media. She argued that our professional organizations should develop media kits, allowing us to influence converage in advance of newsworthy events, as well as preparing opinion pieces for the news outlets and having members organize concerted letter-to-the-editor campaigns. And she noted that the more we do, the more we’ll come to be seen as a reliable source of information, or a clearinghouse. Finally, she argued that organizations should have a set of themes or core messages to repeat over and over in order to get the message out. She reiterated a message often given us by Congressional staff at JNCL meetings: teachers are respected, and our voices are not heard often enough. We should work to speak out on national and local issues, both as individuals and as a profession!

Laurel Rasplica Rodd