Advertising Slavic Languages (was Re: alarm)

[Stephen Bobick]

A thought just occurred to me regarding "advertisement" of Slavic languages.

I attended Universities (undergrad and grad) with language requirements.
During my freshman orientation of my undergrad years (way back in 1987...),
the importance of planning to take care of this requirement was a part of the
material covered in my orientation, and I took a placement test at that time
(for German).  At the time I never even considered doing anything *but*
finish my German -- a language I had invested 5 years of time in (I started
in Jr. High).

I also recall receiving bundles of information about school organizations,
fraternities, etc. both in my dormitory room after I had arrived in school,
and even at home before I left to start school.  I even received a letter
2/3 of the way through my freshman year which encouraged me to change my
major to mathematics because of my performance in first year calculus.

Perhaps Slavic Languages could be advertised in a similar manner:  mailings
to incoming freshman, flyers included in orientation and information packets
in dorm rooms, flyers handed out during freshman orientation, posters and
flyers plastered all over campus at appropriate locations, etc.  I think
some of thses approaches would be especially effective for schools with
a language requirement.

Now I'll admit that many students operate under the premise of "the path of
least resistance" with respect to satisfying their language requirement.  I
did.  However, if I had received an eye-catching flyer about studying language
X I might have seriously considered it.  Why?  Well, personally I had lost
interest in German and was only continuing it because 1) I wanted to "get it
out of the way" as quickly as possible 2) I had no desire to start from
ground zero with a language like Spanish, or French, that interested me no
more than German.  Other languages hardly came to mind.  And I was bewildered
enough with other choices and decisions.  However, who knows what would have
happened had I seen a flyer that caught my interest.  For example, at the
University of Washington, I recall receiving 2 letters from the Japanese
language program about an opportunity they were extending to MS students in
Engineering to get a dual MS with the second degree in Japanese (this
information is from memory, so I may be getting the details of the program
wrong).  Now, I had never thought about taking Japanese before, but, in all
honesty, I really did stop and seriously *think* about it when I received the
initial letter and its follow-up.  True, I decided in the end *not* to take
Japanese, but had I seen an advertisement for *Ukrainian* as a freshman 5
years earlier, things may have been different.

-- Stephen Bobick