"East Europe Specialists Need Not Apply"

[Mark Pinson]

        This is to endorse to the nth power D. Birnbaum's comment on
the need for increasing demand for specialists in our fields before
increasing supply. To all supply-siders I recommend my article "East Europe
Specialists Need Not Apply" {In "Commentary", 1984-  article was in May? and
letters in response in Aug. issue)- naturally all who enjoy gallows-humor
even if you are not supply-siders may also enjoy it.
        The enduring accuracy of this article is indicated by the fact
that one colleague - who works in DC and is frequently asked by young
hopefuls if his office can use their skills - still keeps a copy of this
article for them to read.
        That article was, until my Bosnia book, far and away my most widely
read publication. I wrote it after watching x much silly, eroneous - if not
also downright harmful - stuff [miagko govoria] appear, saying - "we must
train more people"- in the early 80's. Some of our "senior Slavica statesmen"
were upset because from the article it was clear no smooth employment
path existed in this field. The only place there were shortages - were
quite possibly in the classes and degree programs in Slavic studies.
        The hard truth is this - the job market for all foreign area studies
collapsed back in 1969 with Nixon's assault on the then NDFL [today FLAS]
program. So, by  the spring of 1970, when I and many others, finished
Ph.D.s in various kinds of areas, the abundant job market of the 60's
was gone. It cannot come back - we have far more people trained in these
areas than when the well-known tax and spend Democrat, Dwight D Eisenhower,
presided over the creation of NDFL, in the late 50's. But, what has
bothered me for years has been: a] the frequent denial by numerous senior
statesmen in Russ/E.Eur. studies of the existence of a shortage of positions
/or a substantial surplus of highly trained, unemployed specialists.
 b] The lack of clearly visible organized efforts -by AAASS - I can not
speak about ATSEEL - to help the latter group find at least partial
employment in the field. Publishing articles to the effect that more
specialists were needed has been downright harmful because when one was
interviewed and the interviewer was not really knowledgeable about the field,
the interviewer could and in some cases did, conclude that there must
be something wrong with the applicant's credentials since at a time when
there was such a great need for area specialists, he/she did not have a
real position. This is not legend;it happened to me and perhaps to some of
you also.       One of the major weaknesses of the few initiatives
at the national organizational level was that they came from committees
of colleagues who had a job and so in many cases had little sense of
how it really was out there; several employed colleagues told me about this
lack of knowledge/awareness after having read my article. Obviously,
the profession cannot guarantee a job to everyone who finishes a Ph.d in
Rus/E.Eur. studies - but the moral stature of the profession would be
greatly improved had it tried  various other strategies also, kept the
membership at large informed and involved in planning and carrying
these out.