letter in support of Russian (fwd)

[Helena Goscilo]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2000 07:27:01 -0500
From: valentina baslyk <vbaslyk+ at mwcgw.mwc.edu>
To: goscilo at pitt.edu
Subject: letter in support of Russian program

Dear colleagues:

I desperately need your help.

This is my fifth year at Mary Washington College and I was expecting
to submit my tenure file this August.  On March 18, the dean of MWC
informed my chair that she and the provost had decided to recommend
to the Board of Visitors that the College eliminate the Russian
program because of low enrollment.

This is my program. For the past five years I've taught four courses
a semester (8 preps a year), and for the first four years, each
semester, I taught 1st, 2d, and 3d yr. Russian as well as a
literature class in translation. These are the courses  in
translation I rotate: 19th c. R. literature, 20th c. Rus. literature,
Russian culture, and the Russian literary heroine.
This year to offset low enrollments in my language classes, I decided
to offer two classes in translation each semester in lieu of 3d yr.
Russian.
By the end of last fall my enrollments were as follows: R101 (16),
R201 (9), Russian culture (31), and 19th. c. Rus. lit (10). I also
felt obligated to teach  3d yr Russian (R311) to a Russian major who
needed the course to graduate.  This spring my enrolments are: R102
(11), R202 (7 plus 2 in Russia). 20th c. R. lit. (9), R. lit heroine
(20), and R312 (1- same student).
MWC also has a Russian historian, Richard Warner, who offers two
courses in Russian history each year, and a pol. scientist, Jack
Kramer, who teaches poli sci courses on the former Soviet Union.

Please address your letter to Dean Barbara D. Palmer, and send copies
to the following people: President William Anderson, Jr., Provost
Philip Hall, and Joanna Reynolds, Chair, MFL. The address is: Mary
Washington College, Fredericksburg, VA, 22401.

Sincerely,
Valentina Baslyk