Increased Enrollments article

[Renee Stillings]

"And let's keep in mind that we need far more language majors to deal 
with a major trading partner than with an Evil Empire. :-)"

This is an excellent summary statement. The irony of it all is that if to
ask any of the major foreign players in Russia right now, this is their #1
market. The American Chamber of Commerce of Russia has a whole list of
quotes from those heading up operations in Russia that you'd think would
have more of us heading east. They are all making such gobs of money that
they will put up with the other challenges, of which there are many. With
the petrocurrency and the falling dollar there is a flood of money there
waiting to gobble up just about anything (of quality - they are fussy!) we
will sell them.

Berlitz has recently entered the market in Russia. They are literally going
gangbusters - growing at a far faster pace than anticipated. They are not
Exxon or Coca Cola, but they are an indicator as to what is happening.
Russians are looking at international possibilities and learning foreign
languages as fast as they can - even at pretty high prices. Another
interesting trend that is starting set in is Russian investment abroad. How
will this affect the interest in Russia? Hard to say, but Russian money is
coming. Lukoils bought the former Getty Gas Stations, Severstahl bought
Rouge Steel, Evraz bought Oregon Steel Mills. Activity is even more
significant in Europe and the Russians are all over Africa these days. This
year the worldwide investment conference as concern Russia were at least
equally focused on outward investment from Russia. Related to the Evraz
deal, I found the following tidbit interesting (from
http://news.surfwax.com/biz/files/Oregon_Steel_Mills.html which also
highlights some other steel mill activity, much with Russian involvement):

Oct 13, 2007: "OSU is supporting an effort to change the state s foreign
language instruction being led by the University of Oregon, and supported by
government agencies, school districts and businesses such as Nike, IBM,
Reser s Fine Foods and Oregon Steel Mills. The Oregon Roadmap to Language
Excellence aims to ensure that every Oregon high school graduate is
functionally proficient in another language by 2025. (Corvallis Gazette
Times, OR)"

I wonder just how interested Oregon Steel Mills was in supporting foreign
language learning before the Russians took over? Anyone on the list from
Oregon - would be curious as to any real impact this has had locally on
Russian language enrollment.

A hypothetical (or maybe not) question - if the Russians are all learning
English because we (businesses) are coming to them, will we learn Russian if
they start coming to us?

Renee

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