Our precious bandwith

[Gary H. Toops]

>                                                 If Gary's attitude is
> prevalent, that would account for some part of the profession's
> recruitment, enrollment, and attrition problems at the undergrad level.

Gee, and I thought that Richard Brecht's report attributed the 30%-50%
*nationwide* decline in Russian enrollments to the diminished importance
of Russia in the world's political and economic arenas.

Funny thing:  enrollments in classical Greek at Wichita State this
semester are higher than those in Russian, and our classics professor
hasn't used even one Greek want ad to entice students.

Face it: individuals in the profession are fooling themselves if they
think increased enrollments are the result of holding promises of Slavic-
language-related job prospects in front of students.  Russian enrollments
will increase when Russia regains some of its former political and
economic stature and when college administrators stop expediently
allowing foreign-language students unlimited access to Spanish classes.

Gary H. Toops                               TOOPS at TWSUVM.UC.TWSU.EDU
Associate Professor                         Ph (316) WSU-3180 (978-3180)
Wichita State University                    Fx (316) WSU-3293 (978-3293)
Wichita, Kansas 67260-0011 USA              http://www.twsu.edu/~mcllwww