Polish enrollments

[Roman Koropeckyj]

My two bits about Polish enrollments, in this case at UCLA. First-year
Polish is offered in alternating years, this being one of them. There has
been an increase, from 8 in 1994/95 to 11 this year, hence consistent with
trends at other universities. (I should add that first-year Ukrainian
enrollment has increased from 2 in 1995/96 to 7 [I think] this year.) More
interesting in some respects was the enrollment in second-year (advanced
Polish, also offered in alternating years) in 1995/96, where it averaged
6-7 per quarter, of which the great majority were so-called heritage
speakers; and the number of inquiries I received this year from the latter
about an advanced course. What we are clearly witnessing--or at least what
I am witnessing--is the influx to universities of the children of
emigres/immigrants of the 80s who either want to improve the language they
were born into or are looking for an easy language credit. From this
perspective, I think that enrollments in Polish should remain steady or
even increase over the next few years. This makes it all the more
imperative for "Slavic" departments, which are in some instances fighting
for their raison d'etre, if not their existence, because of the decline in
Russian enrollments, to begin rethinking what in many cases (not, I might
add, at UCLA) has been a Russocentric trajectory and for us as advisors of
graduate students to encourage research that at least combines another
Slavic language or literature with Russian (which, for better or worse,
still remains the most realistic area of occupational opportunity and
probably will so into the forseeable future).

Roman Koropeckyj