Flogging a Dead Horse: Enrollments

[David Powelstock]

I apologize for letting my irony get away from me when I wrote: "Studying
(and teaching) Russian doesn't make one an oppressor any more than studying
Italian or German makes one a Fascist."  I did not fully realize at the
time that Mr. Bobick is not in academics, and thus not a part of that
particular polemic in the humanities.  In attempting to make sense of his
position and rhetoric, I attributed them to the prevelent academic ideology
they most resemble.   Nevertheless, his comments, however well-meaning,
betray a deep misunderstanding of how universities and colleges work,
especially now, in the era of "downsizing."  Anyone who has had to beg on
his knees to hire a new faculty member to replace two retiring ones, or
stretch one's abililties to teach a course in a new area, will recognize
this in Mr. Bobick's statement that "it is time for [Slavic Departments] to
broaden their faculty and curricula to be more encompassing of the Slavic
languages other than Russian."  It is difficult to broaden and shrink at
the same time.  Just try it!  Something similar can be said about Mr.
Bobick's advice that "*aggregate* enrollments in the Slavic languages shoud
be the number you are seeking to maximize -- even to the possible detriment
of Russian language enrollments."  Actually, the number we are trying to
maximize in many of our departments right now is the RATIO of students in
our classes to number of faculty.  With that variable included, one can see
why so few departments can afford to hire a Bohemist to teach marginally
fewer students.

A few more points:

Although I *do* apologize for excessive irony, I would also defend myself
(I guess this the Athenian sort of apology, _apologia_!) by citing Bobick
(10/10/96): "It is this attitude about the centrality and ultimate
importance of Russian, which I as an outsider to your field find so
offensive and annoying about so-called "Departments of Slavic Languages."
Bobick was responding to Benjamin Rifkin's innocuous statement: "We MUST
stimulate interest in our target culture and we MUST get the word out that
students who study Russian language and culture can use the skills they
learn in our classes to get good jobs in Russia and in the USA."  Was I
imagining Mr. Bobick's overreaction to Rifkin's statement?

In his response to my message, Mr. Bobick draws a parallel between Russian
imperialism and Russo-centrism in Slavic Departments, even as he denies
doing so.  I wrote: "It is absurd to confuse [the importance of Russian to
the existence of Slavic Departments] with actual historical imperialism in
Eurasia."  Bobick (10/11/96): "There is nothing absurd about this at all.
Russia's imperialism in Eurasia is a major reason for the dominance and
centrality of Russia in Slavic Departments today."  I reply: The connection
is obvious: funding for (and interest in) Russian increased dramatically
during the Cold War.  (Know your enemy.)  However, it is during the same
period that funding for other Slavic languages increased as well,
especially as those countries became "fraternal socialist nations."  The
real reason for the centrality of Russian in Slavic Departments is that the
demand is (and probably always will be) greater for a language spoken by a
few hundred million people than for a language spoken by, say, 10 million
(eg, Czech).  Perhaps if the Czech Republic conquered Russia, Czech would
become the "dominant" language in Slavic Departments.  I repeat: no
Russian, no Slavic Department.  This is obviously not to say that the Czech
language or culture requires Russian language or culture to EXIST in any
political sense.  (It is also not to say that the Czech language or people
are intellectually or culturally less valid.)  This is simply the nature of
the academic economy within which we work.  All of this is by way of
pointing out why we in the field frequently refer to Russian enrollments as
a kind of barometer in our field.  I doubt many Ukrainists, Bohemists,
Polonists, etc. IN the field are as offended as Mr. Bobick, who is not.
Russianists can hardly be blamed for discussing Russian language
enrollments on SEELANGS.  The fact remains, as Benjamin Rifkin points out,
that "we MUST work together, all of us, Russianists and non-Russianists, to
increase enrollments in our field."  And doing so is not a zero-sum game,
either: the larger, more thriving *Russian* programs are the ones that have
the resources and flexibility to have other Slavic languages represented,
often in the person of a Russianist who also knows another Slavic language.

One last point.  All Slavic Departments cannot be all things to all people.
 There is an economy of scale.  There are places that have very strong
Ukrainian programs (such as Harvard), and places with strong Czech and
Polish (such as Chicago).  Students with strong interests in specific
fields would do well to find the school that best meets their needs and
interests.  If some departments currently offering only Russian call
themselves Slavic departments, it is probably out of a desire (some day!)
to have other offerings -- and I hope they succeed!

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*David Powelstock       Phone:  (312) 702-0035          *
*Slavic Department      FAX:    (312) 702-7030          *
*University of Chicago  d-powelstock at uchicago.edu       *
*1130 E. 59th Street                                    *
*Chicago, IL 60637                                      *
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