enrollments

[Sarah Heyer]

I hesitate to offer any examples from our school,
lest I jinx you with enrollments like ours,
but I had a couple of points to offer.

Ben Rifkin noticed that time of day turned out more important than other
factors,
but other enrollment efforts are continuing because our jobs are on the line.

David Kaiser asked if these figures were spiked.

Barry Scherr's figures indicated a two-spiked history of Russian language
enrollments since 1960, with highs in 1968 and 1990.

John Kieselhorst interpreted this as a situation basically beyond our
control, since international events seem much more potent.  Russia's lousy
showing in the international economy may turn off some students, but John
thought that other students might be attracted if we could impress them with
how cool Russian is.

Two comments:  After 1968, the curricula implemented the consensus of the 60s
that courses should be relevant, and foreign language requirements were slashed.
This probably accounts for the decline in foreign languages in the 70s and
early 80s.

The second comment relates to fluctuation with experience from one foreign
language department. (I mentioned this at the AATSEEL meeting in Chicago.)
As I tried to research our Russian Section's repeated battles for survival,
I discovered an amazing and sick cycle:  every time foreign language
(department-wide) enrollments hit a new low, and these figures get published
and read by higher administrators, the board of higher ed. takes it into
their mind to prune their tree of small branches which don't look
prosperous.  The word comes down over the course of a year.  Letters get
sent and re-sent from one level to the next, down and up the hierarchy.  By
the time they finally get around to taking the ax, the department has
mobilized, gotten letters from all the area school superintendents who say
that there are (now) jobs for foreign language teachers and that the
department is an asset to the area.  By this time the enrollment figures are
on the increase and the department feigns shock that the board should think
that there had been a problem with enrollments (thus playing into their
hands for the next time the numbers drop).
There's always some excuse that we can offer (lousy economy in Russia; local
personnel problems) and some changes on the horizon (new jobs opening up;
new faculty hired), but there are better alternatives:
Recognition that the numbers will fluctuate and that boards need to take a
longer view;
or, even better,
Stronger foreign language requirements so that as a society we put our money
where our mouth is about educating for cultural literacy.

The numbers Ben Rifkin sent in from the NY Times show that
the number of students leaving German, French and Russian (together)
is the number of students added to Spanish.
Spanish is basically the second language of this country and
it should be the second language of the majority of Americans
who are taking a second language.
Ideally, they would go on to take a third language,
and then they would be well prepared to deal with the complexities of Russian.
Unfortunately, with fewer language requirements in high school and college,
students get to university with little or no language study,
and it makes sense that they should take Spanish as their first foreign
language.

Here's some good news.  In my first year class, there are two students who
have met Russians and thereafter traveled to Russia with a high school group.
They were so impressed with the Russians they met and their efforts to speak
English,
they want to learn Russian so that next time they can speak Russian
to their new friends.  Another student is learning Russian because he used
to have a Russian girlfriend.  Think about it.  As opportunities for more people
to travel to Russia increase, that personal experience which clinches the
attraction to things Russian will be more commonplace.  As more Russians
(students, immigrants, etc.) come to the U.S., more Americans will make the
acquaintance of Russians and be aware of Russian as a foreign language and
culture worthy of future study.  That may be the source of our next rise in
enrollments.

Sarah Heyer

What follows are the contributions (abridged) which inspired my comments.
 Nothing new after here if you want to skip ahead.

Ben Rifkin's:

 but when asked, students in that
>section said that chose it because the time of day was attractive to them.
>The other 4-day section had very poor enrollment.  When all students in
>first-semester Russian were polled about the 4-day sections, the
>overwhelming majority (95%!) said that they would not sign up for that kind
>of section for second semester unless the time the section met was the best
>time of the day for them or all the other sections were closed.
>Accordingly, we dropped the 4-day plan like a hot potato.  This year we
>tried marking one of our first-semester sections in the timetable as
>specifically for students with an interest in business, and scheduled the
>class to meet in the Business School's building.  The section had robust
>enrollment, but only 5 of the 19 students indicated any interest in
>business.  The others signed up because they decided that that was the best
>time for them to take Russian.  In total, our enrollments are slightly down
>from last year at this time (65 this year, 70 last year in first-semester)
>and we are still looking for ways to get students in the door.  We will
>continue to offer "Read Russian in an Hour" in the spring semester (a week
>before registration for the following fall) and we will continue to conduct
>"Russia Day" for high school students from across Wisconsin and Northern
>Illinois in the hope of attracting students to our first-semester course.
>We also send faculty and students to area studies courses to publicize
>language offerings and distribute flyers.  (If you like Russian history,
>why not try learning Russian?  It's FUN!)  Any other ideas out there?
>. . .
>
>Whatever the case, if the trend for declining enrollments continues, our
>profession and our mission will suffer greatly.  We MUST focus on
>enrollments and we must focus our attention on strategies for success in
>enrollment building.
>

The numbers Ben Rifkin sent in from the NY Times :
>
>I apologize for misquoting the NY Times article to which Genevra Gerhardt
>referred.  In fact, "other languages" experienced a whopping 42% increase
>in enrollments, from 17,544 in 1990 to 24,918 in 1995, compared to a 36%
>increase for Chinese, a 28% increase for Arabic, a 14% increase for
>Spanish, a 5% increase for Portuguese, a 1% increase for Hebrew and
>decreases in Ancient Greek (1%), Japanese (2%), Latin (8%), Italian (12%),
>French (25%), German (28%) and Russian (45%).  According to these
>enrollment figures, the most popular languages and their enrollments in
>1995 are:
>
>Spanish                  606,286
>French                    205,351
>German                   96,263
>Japanese                  44,723
>Italian                      43,760
>Chinese                   26,471
>Latin                        25,897
>Russian                   24,729 (down from 44,626 in 1990)
>Ancient Greek      16,272
>Hebrew                  13,127
>Portuguese             6,531
>Arabic                      4,444
>
>Other languages registered enrollments of 17,544 in 1990 and 24,918 in 1995.
>
>In 1990, Russian was the 6th most popular foreign language (after Spanish,
>French, German, Italian and Japanese, in that order).  In 1995, Russian was
>the 8th most popular foreign language.  Chinese passed Russian and Russian
>fell behind Latin (which also experienced a decline in enrollment, but a
>relatively slight one.)
>
>The article is on p. B8 of the NY Times for 10/9/96 and the data are from
>the MLA's survey of foreign language enrollments in 1990 in 2,772 two- and
>four-year colleges in the US.
>

David Kaiser asked if these figures were spiked:

>Regarding the NYT article in which a 45% drop in enrollment was mentioned,
>how does enrollment look compared to historical trends? Specifically, did
>we get a "spike" in the late 80s due to the heady days of glasnost, only
>to return to historically normal levels in the 90s? Or is this a true
>decline in enrollment and not a correction (to use the economists' term
>for such things)?
>
>
Barry Scherr's figures:

>In response to David Kaiser's inquiry, here are some MLA figures, rounded to
>the nearest 1000,  from earlier surveys:
>
>1960:   31k
>1968:   41k
>1970:    36k
>1974:   33k
>1977:   28k
>1980:   24k
>1983:   30k
>1986:   34k
>1990:   45k
>1995:   25k
>
>Russian enrollments in 1995 were still slightly above their historic low in
>1980, but the recent decline over just five years is much steeper than the
>12-year decline from 1968-1980. Also, the 1995 enrollments are well below the
>average over the last 35 years, when they were most often in the low to
>mid-30's.
>

John Kieselhorst's:

>Date:    Thu, 10 Oct 1996 12:26:43 -0600
>From:    john kieselhorst <jak209 at lulu.acns.nwu.edu>
>Subject: Enrollment alarm?
>
>        The recent article in the NY Times (Oct 9, p.B8) indicating a 45%
>decline in Russian enrollments (1990 vs. 1995) has caused "Alarm" on the
>SEELANGS lines.  For my part, I wonder that we academics sometimes fail to
>understand that our own efforts are often only an exceedingly small part of
>the larger world in which we live.
>
>        The Times article  shows Russian to have suffered the greatest
>enrollment decline of all foreign languages.  We do well to ask ourselves
>if there is anything that we can do to raise enrollments.  However, I think
>we really need to take MLA executive director Phyllis Franklin's comments
>in that article seriously.  "The foreign languages chosen for study by
>students have always fluctuated, and they have always reflected
>international developments."  I would suggest that certain national trends
>here at home have also contributed to the decline. The following are some
>random thoughts on the why the figures are what they are, and some
>suggestions about what to do about it.
>
>        1) I do not have statistics at hand, but I would be willing to bet
>my graduate student stipend that the 1990 Russian enrollments (the base
>used in the Times comparison) were unusually high by comparison with
>previous years. As we all know, rapid changes in the (then) Soviet Union
>and East bloc countries led to increased ease of travel, wild political
>speculation, and excitement about newly-opened markets in a population of
>over 260 million.  Enrollments were bound to increase dramatically in the
>wake of such developments. However, Russia's disappointing political and
>economic progress in recent years, I would venture, has soured the
>enthusiasm of many potential new students.
>
>        2) Perhaps more notable than the decline in specifically Russian
>enrollment was the decline in all European languages other than Spanish and
>Portuguese.  This is notable, though not surprising. The klichka
>"eurocentric" has become as damning on our campuses today as the brand
>"counter-revolutionary" was during the Russian Civil War. Whether or not we
>accept Russia as "European" really matters little; in the perception of our
>potential new students, this is merely another language spoken by the "dead
>white males" society.  Few outside of our field are familiar with Russian
>literature beyond Tolstoevsky, perhaps Chekhov, and the film version of
>Pasternak; Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Ginsburg, Gippius, and others, have yet to
>become common coin with the American reading public.
>
>        Having identified some sources of our enrollment woes, the question
>remains, "chto delat'?"  On the international, front, we should emphasize
>that the opportunity to travel to Russia still remains.  While successful
>markets continue to be a thing of the future, the excitement of visiting a
>nation in the process of nation building (or perhaps reconstruction is more
>appropriate) is worth emphasizing to prospective students. In the main,
>however, we should perhaps recognize our own powerlessness over
>international events that cause fluctuations in our student populations,
>and stop wasting energy trying to address issues that lie beyond our
>control.
>
>        It seems to me a more productive approach would focus on the home
>front. Slavists are generally less inclined to the kind of europe-bashing
>that floats enrollments in English, French and comparative literature
>courses (these always find a way to invite students into their European
>tents under the rubric of "colonialism"). We need to look for positive
>solutions.

 . . . . [go back in your trash and read the rest of it; it was good,
but I'll save space here]



Sarah Heyer  <heyer at siu.edu>
Dept. of Foreign Languages
Southern Illinois University
Carbondale, IL 62901-4521
U.S.A.