Ohio students studying Chinese worry they could lose their instructors

ATHENS, Ohio (WCMH) -- Members of Ohio University's Chinese Language Student Association (CLSA) said they are concerned about the future of their club and classmates.

"They're again putting important people -- our instructors, other students who participate in the program -- at risk," CLSA member and Ohio University junior Emma Ellifritz said.

Ellifritz and her peers are "disheartened" by limitations the state and federal governments are placing on Chinese students and Chinese academic partnerships. Members of the club said these legislative threats could hurt not just CLSA but Ohio University's entire Chinese language program.

During trade negotiations, President Donald Trump walked back a State Department pledge to "aggressively" revoke visas for Chinese students studying in the U.S., but efforts to stop Chinese involvement in higher education continue.

Congressmen in both the House and Senate introduced bills that would ban visas for Chinese students. At the state level, Ohio recently banned public universities from accepting money or forging partnerships with Chinese universities and organizations. Preexisting academic partnerships also cannot be renewed.

CLSA member Gage McGraw, a senior at Ohio University, said they are frustrated because they feel Chinese instruction is already limited. Ohio University does not offer a Chinese language major, minor or certificate, so Chinese language courses fall under linguistics or East Asian studies. McGraw said this contributes to a "hierarchy" in the language department, where Chinese falls toward the bottom.

McGraw said that in recent years, the university has removed some study abroad opportunities to China. Ohio University also employs just one Chinese language instructor, relying on graduate students to teach most Chinese classes. Many of these graduate students hail from China, and CLSA members said it's helpful to learn from native speakers who are near in age to their students.

“If they didn't have access to come to OU, then our language program, not even just the club, but the program itself, would suffer because we wouldn't have instructors,” McGraw said.

Lawmakers interested in limiting Chinese interactions cite national security concerns. McGraw and Ellifritz said they understand that national security is important, and agreed that threats need to be taken seriously. However, they said eliminating opportunities to learn about China and connect with Chinese nationals leaves fewer students who have the knowledge to help protect the U.S.

"If we're talking about national security, you absolutely want your universities to be teaching critical languages and to have the best people, which is people who speak the language and who are informed with the cultural norms and cultural significance surrounding language, to be providing education," McGraw said.

McGraw and Ellifritz said if they have to, they will continue CLSA's mission despite new restrictions, but they hope it won't come to that. They said losing their instructors, classmates and collaborations would be difficult to recover from.

"Lacking different voices puts a damper on our work to engage students on campus with Chinese culture, especially if there's this precedent set, that sense of bad connotation about it," Ellifritz said.