Promoting Image of Slavic Languages

[J. Rouhier-Willoughby]

As the chair of the Subcommittee on External Promotion for the Slavic
Linguistics Task Force, I would like to second Jason Pontius's comments
that internal promotion is extremely important for Slavists as a whole.
However, there are groups that are not quite external to the discipline
who, in some cases, have felt that they are excluded, namely middle and
high school teachers of Russian.

While many university faculty are actively involved in local high school
programs, our survey of last year shows that many high school teachers feel
isolated from their university colleagues. While this isolation cannot
squarely be laid at the doorstep of university faculty, one problem that
the high school teachers agreed upon was the lack of respect for high
school teaching of Russian. Namely, they and their students are often
disappointed that the students receive no credit for what they have learned
prior to college and are placed in first year courses, which makes them
feel inadequate. As a result, they advise their friends still in high
school not to take Russian in college. This issue is a thorny one, but we
hope to make some progress this year. The results from last year's survey
are posted at the following URL:
http://clover.slavic.pitt.edu/~aatseel/databases/high-school-survey.html

A similar type of isolation from the field in which they are interested may
be extended to heritage groups. In many cases, these groups as well as
businesses with connections to Eastern Europe have a stake in preserving
the discipline, but have never been asked to become involved. Again, we
realize that some may not have an interest in this endeavour, but such
involvement has been successful. For example, Ukrainian groups in Canada
provide scholarships and promote education in the language and culture. An
added advantage to developing ties with regional heritage groups is that
they could form the basis of a public lobby. As the University of
Washington discovered during its crisis, outcry from influential public
leaders, namely businesses, carried a great deal of weight in salvaging the
department.

Finally, we are investigating which outreach programs designed to increase
enrollment have been successful. Some preliminary information on this issue
was gathered in last year's survey, but we would like to set up a link to
the web page focusing on this topic to disseminate valuable information to
Slavists regardless of specialization.

If anyone has any information or suggestions on any of these issues or
would like to become involved in the subcommittee, please contact me at
jrouhie at pop.uky.edu.

Regards,

 Jeanmarie Rouhier-Willoughby
Subcommittee on External Promotion

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Jeanmarie Rouhier-Willoughby           telephone:  (606) 257-1756
Department of Russian and Eastern Studies      fax:  (606) 257-3743
1055 Patterson Office Tower                email:  jrouhie at pop.uky.edu
University of Kentucky           URL: http://www.uky.edu/~jrouhie/
Lexington, KY 40506-0027
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