Flogging a Dead Horse: Enrollments

[Stephen Bobick]

  Mr. 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.

Somehow I do not think we are understanding eachother here.  All I was
proposing is that by expanding Slavic Language departments to be more
encompassing, and seeking to maximize *aggregate* enrollments, Slavic Language
Departments could become more healthy.  This proposition depends on the
assumption that greater enrollment equals greater funding for a department.
I.e. if your enrollment dropped 45% in 6 years, then yes you are (and should)
be downsized.  If you can get enrollments back up then you should receive
more funding and be able to hire more faculty members.  How best to get the
enrollment up?  Focus just on Russian courses or focus on all your courses?
This is where we disagree (I think).

As for elimination of faculty and downsizing, I guess you'd need to keep
(and hire) faculty with skills in greater than 1 Slavic Language, as well as
look into other options (hiring lecturers, or using graduate students to
teach 1st year courses in Slavic Languages other than Russian).  At UCSD,
we had lecturers for several Computer Science courses: often they did not
have PhD's, and they were not tenure-track.  Also, please note that you are
not in the only profession where downsizing is occuring -- especially with
the accompanying requirements of doing more with less.  :-(

  >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.

No.  You misunderstood me.  And perhaps I misunderstood you.  I was not
drawing one parallel while at the same time denying that I was doing so.
I was *clarifying* what parallel I was making in response to your comment:

  >"It is absurd to confuse [the importance of Russian to the existence of
  >Slavic Departments] with actual historical imperialism in Eurasia."
  >"Studying (and teaching) Russian doesn't make one an oppressor any more
  >than studying Italian or German makes one a Fascist."

There *is* a tie between Russian imperialism in Eurasia and Russo-centrism in
Slavic Language departments.  Specifically, the history of imperial Russia
and its successor government have made the Russian language an important one
for several reasons.  I never denied this.  What I do deny is the proposition
that the above fact makes Russian educators and scholars *oppressors*, or
*imperialists*.

  >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

I never advocated elimination of Russian *anywhere*.

  >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.

But does there exist even *one* Slavic Language Department in the US which has
a program in any Slavic language, X, that has a quality that is equal to or
greater than the quality of its Russian program?

  >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!

-- Stephen Bobick