Students mobilise to stop La Trobe from shutting down Greek Studies

The drive to save Greek Studies department at La Trobe University gathered pace this week with students launching a petition on Facebook that by Monday morning had already gathered more than 2,000 signatures and calling to influential people in the state and beyond to add their support.

News of the consultation period before the closure was announced on Wednesday, 11 November, and generated widespread support from over 20 Greek community organisations in Victoria. Concerned organisations will be attending a meeting later today to formulate an action plan to save Greek Studies at La Trobe University.

Meanwhile, students of the program have been busy generating support across the state and beyond to include state and federal government leaders, and to the Diaspora in order to urge La Trobe’s leadership to keep the programme open.

Final-year student Margarita Smith who was among those that organised the petition said that students had mobilized to write to State Premier Dan Andrews, Federal Minister for Education Dan Tehan, as well as organsations across Australia.

“We were told about the discontinuation of the course on Wednesday and in four days we organized the petition and organized and circulated an open letter. We will hold an information session this Wednesday.

READ MORE: La Trobe University’s Greek language programme under threat

“All of us have written testimonies to La Trobe asking them to keep the course going. We have had former course students calling us and asking us what they can do,” Ms Smith said.

“We have been in contract with Greek associations, the archdiocese and Greek media around the world. This is not just about Victoria, our language is dying in the Diaspora and if you lose that, then what about our culture and history?”

She said that while funding had been cut for Arts courses, La Trobe was missing an essential point that supported the preservation of Greek Studies – not only because it was the only one in Victoria to offer the course that was open to all university students in Melbourne-  but also because the Federal government had moved to reduce the costs of language subjects by over 40 per cent.

“La Trobe has not properly thought this through,” Ms Smith said.

Ms Anthea Banousis who finished three years of study to be awarded a BA degree in Greek Studies and who is continuing her studies for BA Law degree said she was very disappointed to hear that La Trobe was going to close the department that had served it so well for 38 years.

She reminded the university that the Greek Studies Department was the custodian of Dardalis Archives which have documented Greek migration from the end of the Second World War to the present.

“That is pretty much the whole of our (Greek) history in Australia. This is an opportunity to utilize those archives and use them as much as possible.

“Pre COVID, there were plans to organize an event to share the archives with the people,” said Ms Banousis.

“There were a lot of different reasons why I picked Greek Studies, one of them was to be able to speak to Greek clients (when she graduates in law) and to make them feel comfortable and to be able to properly communicate Australian law to them.

“Through studying the course, I can speak Greek at an academic level which is important in terms of foreign affairs, international business and trade in general,” she said.

“But apart from the career and job aspect, the reason I did the course was because I enjoy and love the language. It is very important for my generation to speak Greek at home. I did Greek at school but my reading and writing was not up to scratch. The course helped to work on these aspects.

READ MORE: An open letter to La Trobe University: You can help save the Greek language course!

Fokion Sapountzis is the president of the Greek club at Melbourne University where he is into the second year of a commerce degree. He has also enrolled for Greek Studies at La Trobe once a week.

Melbourne University allows students to take a subject that is outside their main degree. For Mr Sapountzis, the course is important as away to study Greek history, language and identity as well as providing him with the opportunity of connecting with other Greek students.

“It is a challenging course at times, but it is also rewarding once you see the beauty of the language.

I am a third-generation Greek Australian and I speak Greek at home. It is most important to be able to communicate with the grandparents and many of my generation have lost contact with their grandparents because they did not have the language.

“Our grandparents grew up in Greece and brought their cultural values and traditions to Australia. That is why it is so important to be able to talk to them,” said Mr Sapountzis.

Angelica Rigopoulos studies full time at Monash University on Bachelor of Science and Art but is also doing Greek Studies once a week through Latrobe.

“I have been doing Greek all my life but wanted to do the course to improve my language and I am glad I did it as I have learnt so much from studying Greek texts from the 19th century onwards. I have learnt much about Greek history and have read the work of writers during the Occupation.

“I was going to do the diploma course part time over three years more out of personal interest and also to connect to my Greek roots.

“I think Melbourne has a big Greek population. Greeks have always had good relations with Australia. Greek did so much and there is so much to learn from the language, tradition and culture. Greek Studies is also rewarding even for non-Greeks.”

READ MORE: GCM calls for action to save La Trobe Uni’s Greek Studies program

Ms Smith said her father, an Australian who was married for 30 years to her Greek mother has learnt much from asking his daughter about the course.

“He went and bought the book Eleni (book by Nicholas Gage) and has learnt much about the Greek Civil war just by asking about what I am learning on the course.

First-year Greek Studies student Janna Trifon said that many students were disheartened and shocked by La Trobe University’s intention to shut down the course.

“The only Greek I learnt was what my grandparents taught me which was enough to hold conversations. By doing the course I am hoping to teach Greek when I graduate,” she said.

Ms Trifon is doing a double degree Bachelor of Education Secondary and Bachelor of Arts Humanities.

“I am of Greek descent and I want to work within the Greek community, or I could (use the course) teach at the International School in Greece.

“If they shut down Greek Studies at La Trobe, I may move to Sydney where there are similar courses at the University of Sydney and at Macquarie University as well.

Ms Trifon is also a member of the National Union of Greek Australian Students (NUGAS) which has been mobilized in the battle to keep Greek Studies open at La Trobe. She said the organisation was uploading posts on social media and spreading the word on the internet.

“We hope that with more awareness within the community we can save the programme. There are over 80 Greek communities in Victoria who need to get involved and to say something to the University.

“The students also need to speak out and the university needs to listen on a personal level to all our concerns,” she said.

Angelica Panopoulos addressed an open letter to LaTrobe University calling on it to reconsider its decision. The recently elected councillor to Moreland City Council said the course was of great importance.

“This course is so incredibly important to me on so many levels. On the most basic one, I am able to speak another language. However, this barely scratches the surface of the benefits of learning a language. This has helped me communicate with my grandparents, connect with my culture and heritage and has helped formulate my self-identity.

“This is particularly influential for me as someone of Greek background who was born in Australia (my parents were also born here). In addition, I have recently been elected to Moreland City Council. We have a large Greek population, so I know that having these language skills will help me in a professional capacity.”

Ms Panopoulos pointed out that more students were taking up the course than in the past.

“Over the past year or so, we’ve seen enrolment double in Greek Studies at La Trobe. That is a testament to the staff. That is perhaps what is most devastating about the proposed cuts – we had been expanding the program, offering new subjects and even had a study tour to Greece last year that I went on. Everything seemed to be going well,” Ms Panopoulos said.

Another student, Nicholas George Archon said that the course had seen an increase of up to 42 per cent over the last two years.

“It is a shame that La Trobe University would be cancelling Greek Studies before it has a chance to mature into a bigger subject. It is a big draw for La Trobe and a lot of Greek students would have taken it up as option,” he said.

He added that the importance of language studies was at least recognized by the federal government when it did not include languages as part of its steep increase in the study of other Humanities subjects.