The English Department was merged with the English Culture and Language Department this summer. Now, why we had those two seperate departments to begin with is an open question, but merging them together has proved even more rediculous. The English Department has traditionally been where the school's best students are sent. The other variations (see Culture, Applied languages, Intl. studies etc) took less talented students. By merging the departments, we have successfully lowered the average quality of everything (students, Chinese teachers, foreign teachers) in one fell swoop. So why did we do it?
The Dean of the English department was offered an opportunity to become an elite translation department. That meant that more than half of the teachers would have lost their jobs (myself included, probably). To save our jobs, and the history of the department, the dean instead merged us into the other department, taking a lower status job.
Why would the higher status department be merged into the lower status department? I have no idea, but here is my two cents: our dean was a woman, while the other dean was a Deng Xiaoping sized man.
Safe to say, the glass ceiling in China is in no danger. Too bad for us.
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