Rising Russian Enrollments

[John Schillinger]

Dear Seelangers-- This is heartening news, in keeping with the trend  
described in the article posted by CCPCR (the Committee on College and  
Pre-College Russian) in the ACTR and AAASS newsletters last spring,  
and in a forthcoming issue of the AATSEEL newletter.  The findings in  
the article are based upon data collected annually in the CCPCR pre- 
college and college census of enrollments.  Data from this fall is now  
being collected to further document the trend.

CCPCR encourages your institution to participate in this census-- 
please see our website at www.american.edu/research/CCPCR/ for  
details.  Data received in Sept. and October will begin being posted  
this week.  Excerpts from the  article follow below:

 From the CCPCR Website: A New Trend in Pre-College and College  
Enrollments

          The annual census of pre-college Russian programs began 25  
years ago as one of the activities of the Committee on College and Pre- 
College Russian, an inter-organizational committee that was created  
through AATSEEL, AAASS and ACTR in response to the Carter Commission’s  
Report Foreign Languages and International Studies.  For nearly a  
decade, CCPCR conducted its surveys by mail and phone, with results  
mailed back to all participants.  Today, this census as well as an  
annual listing of college level enrollments in Russian, other Slavic  
and East European languages, and a listing of US-based summer programs  
in those languages are produced by e-mail contacts and are readily  
available to all on the CCPCR website.  The good news: after reviewing  
years of enrollment data gathered at the K-12, and more recently, at  
the college level, it is possible to report that we may finally be  
seeing an upward trend.

          As documented in the statistics link on the CCPCR website,  
the peak of pre-college enrollments came in AY 1989-90 near the end of  
the Gorbachev era, when responses were received from over 400 schools  
with nearly 18,000 students enrolled in K-12 Russian language  
courses.  We know all too well, however, that the end of the Cold War  
was followed by a period of declining pre-college and college  
enrollments and program losses.

          The extent of the impact on pre-college programs was  
dramatic.  By 1996 only 300 schools with 10,000 students responded to  
the census.  Concern about the extent of this trend led CCPCR to begin  
documenting the termination of programs by listing school names and  
states on its website, resulting as of this writing in a total of 208  
programs terminated in the past decade.  Currently, not a single  
Russian program can be found in 22 states, and states such as  
California and Colorado, which had 25 schools between them in 1996,  
together have a total of only three reported programs.  At the college  
level during this period many programs were threatened; some  
successfully gathered support and survived, but others fell victim to  
administrative reallocation of funds to other programs.

          This year, the Fall 2008 census lists responses from 106 pre- 
college schools, a realistic number considering the loss of over 200  
schools and their teachers since 1998.  Surprisingly, however, these  
106 schools have a total of nearly 10,000 students.  Large K-8  
introductory programs account for some of this unexpectedly high  
enrollment, such as a FLAP grant to Memphis schools accounting for  
600+ students, and individually strong high school programs such as  
Staten Island Tech, with over 1,000 students taking Russian at all  
four levels. Also contributing to the sense of rebound is the  
initiation of 11 new programs in the past two years (listed on the  
website).

          But this is not just a K-12 pattern: growing enrollments  
reported at the college level also appear to indicate renewed interest  
in Russian.  In 2002, CCPCR began documenting enrollment at the 1st  
and 2nd year levels. Of 63 programs responding thus far this year,  
over 40 have increased enrollments in 1st year Russian over their  
previously-reported level, and some gains are quite significant.  Some  
examples: American U. from 28 to 55, Boston College from 14 to 26, the  
U. of Oklahoma from 37 to 48, Ohio State from 94 in 2006 to 145 in  
2008, Pittsburgh from 38 to 55, St. Olaf from 27 to 42, Texas Tech  
from 22 to 44, and William and Mary from 40 in 2006 to 59 last fall.   
Clearly, one swallow does not make a spring, but the numbers are  
widespread enough this year to give us hope.


Prof. John Schillinger

Chair, CCPCR

Committee on College and Pre-College Russian

e-mail: ccpcr at american.edu

website:

www.american.edu/research/CCPCR/
>

John Schillinger
Emeritus Prof. of Russian
American University




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