There’s a way they could stop it
A community petition is circulating, pointing out the importance of the language and how proposing to drop it in the 700th anniversary year of Dante Alighieri’s death, “shows a profound lack of respect for the Italian community at large.”
If this is not enough to convince the university perhaps the friends of Flinders Italian should ask advice from the people who saved Greek at La Trobe U.
The way they did it was to mount a community campaign, including promises of money and help with enrolments. The state government also got involved kicking in 40 000 for scholarships to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Greek independence. This all helped convince LT U management to keep teaching Greek for at least three years (CMM January 29). After community protests Hindi also set to go, survived (CMM February 9).
But if Flinders U management decides nixing Italian is too hard it could always drop French – and blame it on Messieurs Morrison and Dutton.