UCLA Paying for Employee Spanish Lessons

Hat tip The College Fix


UCLA is now paying for its employees to learn Spanish.

http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/16438/

And how about the Jonathan Livingston Seagull language coming from their diversity coordinators?

“It is important as a university and employer that we are on the cutting edge providing our staff with the necessary tools needed to meet the future,” Lee Walton, a UCLA diversity coordinator, said in an email to The College Fix. “The exciting opportunity for a staff employee to learn a language during working hours is priceless.”

“The program began as a pilot project to enhance the cultural awareness of managers, especially those who led ethnically diverse staff members.”

Comment:  First of all, it may be priceless for the one learning Spanish, but if you are doing this on company time and UCLA   is  paying the freight, surely, some bean counters can come up with a round figure on how much this costs the tax payers who support UCLA.

Secondly, in the interest of full disclosure, I learned Thai at the Foreign Service Institute in Rosslyn, Virginia over a six-month period in  1974,  and it was paid for by my employer, the US Drug Enforcement Administration. Similarly, I also attended the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California studying Italian in 1982 for a one month period-again paid for by DEA. In other words, the tax-payer footed the bill. There was a difference, however. Both of those training programs were to prepare me for overseas assignments in Thailand and Italy.  

Last I checked, UCLA is located in the US. And I don't recall any of the Thai and Italian police counterparts I worked with getting free English lessons so they could enhance their cultural awareness and interact with little ol' me in their own countries.

As for the other languages I have learned in my life, I paid for it myself. Unless they are being sent to work long-term  in a Spanish-speaking country on behalf of UCLA, those  employees should be doing the same.