CNBC in Russia

[Katerina Siskron]

Dear Colleagues,
I am writing this to express my appreciation for your support and hard work on
the behalf of the Russian Program at SFSU. Our joint efforts have produced very
impressive results:

1. As of this morning we have over 1367 signatures on our electronic petition
and 196 letters of support. We also have three resolutions (two from the City of
Berkeley and one from the CSU language Coucil). Thank you!

And if you haven’t signed yet, please go to www.sfsu.edu/~russian. If you feel
moved to write an electronic letter of support for our Program, please send a
copy to the Chair of the Academic Senate, Caran Colvin ccolvin at sfsu.edu Chair of
the Educational Policy Committee, David Meredith Meredith at sfsu.edu and to me at
siskron at sfsu.edu
2. The president’s Office has finally turned over the letters of support to the
Academic Senate. Some of the letters of which we have copies seem to be missing,
and we are not allowed to make copies of the letters that the President turned
over to the Senate, but at least we have access. We can even copy by hand
excerpts to quote in our rebuttal to the proposal to cut our Program if we bring
our own paper and pencil! We feel like Medieaval scribes on the Technological
Superhighway!
3. The Educational Policy Committee hearing on the fate of our Program has been
postponed on our request because we were denied timely access to the
aforementioned letters of support. The new date for the hearings is Nov 9, from
2-4 p. m., in HUM 587.
4.  The EPC has also agreed to arrange for a room large enough to accommodate
the speakers, the students and members of the community who may wish to come to
show their support.
5. The [X]Press (student paper) is doing a series of articles on us again this
semester. The most recent article on the unanimous passage of the Resolution of
Support by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors’ made the front page. The
resolution is being forwarded by the Board of Supervisors to the President of
SFSU, the CSU Chancellor, the Board of Trustees, all of the legislators and the
Governor.
6. In addition to the resolution of support from the SF Board of Supervisors, we
have two others: from the Immigrant Rights Commission of the City of San
Francisco, and from the CSU Foreign Language Council and a statement of support
from CLTA, California Language Teachers’ Association.
7. In a most timely manner I received a letter and certificate of appreciation
from the Sate of California Commission on Teacher Credentialing for serving on
Languages Other Than English Panel last semester and facilitating field testing
at SFSU of single subject examinations for future teachers of Russian.
8. On a sad note, have agreed not to defend the M.A. Program. The University
administration blocked admission to the Program as of last Spring, and although
that is clearly a preemptive strike against a Program that has not been formally
discontinued yet, we decided we simply don’t have the resources to fight on two
fronts. The students currently enrolled in the Program will be allowed to
graduate, and we will focus on keeping and building the B.A. Program. Once we
have a tenure track hire, we can revisit the possibility of reconstituting the M.A.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Use your web browser to search the archives, control your subscription
  options, and more.  Visit and bookmark the SEELANGS Web Interface at:
                    http://seelangs.home.comcast.net/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------