Their approach is wrong. You don't say at a university level that you're going to teach C in a class. That's not what university level courses are about. If you're teaching programming applications and techniques then use a relevant language which supports those concepts. Learning a language should be a bi-product of the university course, not the fundamental reason for it. You learn C as part of any myriad of courses such as networking, but then it is simply a lecture or two then students need to get up to speed themselves.