By POLINA MARINOVA

ATHENS, GEORGIA — Students enrolled in Amharic language classes at the African Studies Institute went to class the first day of school only to be turned away.

Athens is a suburb 59 miles away from Atlanta.

The AMHA1001 and AMHA2001 courses, with a total enrollment of 39 students, were cancelled for fall semester.

“We never got an official e-mail from OASIS saying that the class has been canceled,” said Ethio Hunachew, a senior from Lilburn. “Students went to the class, and we found out they actually told Professor [Kedebe] Gessesse not to show up. They were turning away students without any kind of notice.”

Each semester students petition for the Amharic language courses because the classes cannot be offered if there are fewer than 10 students. Though there was enough student interest this semester, the class was cancelled.

“For me, this is just highly unprofessional,” Hunachew said. “We didn’t even get a notice or anything, and people were really looking forward to this class. It just doesn’t make sense.”

Hunachew said there are Swahili classes with fewer than 10 students, so she doesn’t understand why the Amharic course was cancelled.

However, class enrollment wasn’t the issue.

“We have been in a situation where we did not have faculty with the expertise to provide the course,” said Garnett Stokes, dean of Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. “Last year, the teaching assistant, at the very last moment, was unable to offer the class. The African Studies Institute scrambled and found Mr. Gessesse to pick up the Amharic class in the spring. But at that time I had discussions with others in the college, and we made the decision that it was not appropriate for the instruction of an entire language to be dependent upon non-faculty — especially part-time people without terminal degrees in the area.”

Hunachew said the entire situation is “very infuriating,” and though the students in the class are upset, she empathizes with her professor the most.

“I felt so bad for him,” Hunachew said. “First of all, he commutes from Atlanta to be here every single day. He really, really put a lot into this course, and he wanted to see it expand.”

Gessesse, part-time instructor at the African Studies Institute, said he prepared a curriculum and lesson plans for both courses over the summer.

“It’s very unfortunate, not just because I won’t get to teach, but because I invested my time and I dedicated myself,” Gessesse said. “I used my own home, my own money and my own personal resources to design the curriculum for the courses.”

Gessesse said he contacted the African Studies Institute in July asking about the status of the course, but he was not given a definite answer.

“I’m seeing that it was a predetermined decision,” Gessesse said. “For some reason, they didn’t want the course to be offered at all.”

Stokes confirmed the decision to cancel the Amharic course was made last spring.

“We didn’t know that this course was actually on the books and that students were signing up for it,” Stokes said. “As soon as we realized it, we had to make the decision to cancel it because we have to deal with the fact that, at this time, we don’t have the faculty backup to provide oversight for the instruction for this course.”

Though Franklin made the decision to not offer the class last spring, students didn’t find out until the first day of school.

“It wasn’t clear to me when students actually received the notification because we had let African Studies know of this decision as soon as we became aware that the course was on the books, which was the week before classes started,” Stokes said.

Gessesse said he is appalled at the lack of respect for the students in the class.

“I have been a professor at other institutions, and I’ve worked all of my life in an academic institution, and I’ve never witnessed such a last-minute action to notify students,” Gessesse said.

The last-minute notification has also left Gessesse without a job.

“I was going to teach, and when they told me it was cancelled, I don’t have any employment,” Gessesse said. “I was counting on it, and now I don’t have that.”

Stokes said she has received calls and e-mails from students, and she has tried to directly answer their questions, but for now, the future of the Amharic course is unclear.

“We recognize the importance of the Amharic language, but as a college, we have responsibilities to ensure that the instruction we provide is consistent with what it means to be a research University,” Stokes said. “We want to be sure that we have our faculty oversight with appropriate expertise when offering language instruction to our students.”

However, Hunachew said she will continue to fight for this class.

“We believe this is not right on their part,” Hunachew said. “We don’t want to just give up. I’m still hopeful that it will be reinstated, but if not, we’ll definitely fight for it spring semester.”