Cataloguing the decline

Bad news from Westminster that their prestigious MA in Conference Interpreting Techniques is to close.  One of the their graduates writes poignantly:

“Mais Westminster n’est pas qu’une salle de cours équipée de cabines : c’est bien plus un réseau de plusieurs générations de centaines d’interprètes qui se réclameront à jamais de cette école, actifs aux quatre coins du monde, et qui la feront survivre aussi longtemps qu’eux-mêmes, dans une identité partagée. Les plus jeunes d’entre nous ont à peine 25 ans, alors je crois que Westminster a encore de beaux jours devant elle.”

My translation:

“Yet Westminster is not just a classroom equipped with interpreting booths.  It is much more than that.  It is a network of several generations of hundreds of interpreters who will always take pride in having been to this school .  They are active in all four corners of the world and Westminster will survive as long as they do,  in a shared identity.  The youngest of them are barely 25,  so I think Westminster has many good days ahead.”

[Apologies to anyone whose French is more accurate than mine].

If I think about my own department and its up and downs over the past twenty years I would probably say something similar.