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[Martha Sherwood]

>The recent communications about Russian enrollments have been very
>interesting. It seems to emerge that while there has been a substantial
>decline over the past few years (ours at Texas started precisely from 90 to
>91, aft er a steady and sustained upward trend from 1979 to 1990), this
>decline has essentially been arrested as of 94 to 95. But there is no way of
>telling how local this flattening out is.
>
>I would like to raise a different question. Say that there is a national
>trend of decline, for whatever reason (disenchantment with post-communist
>Russia, backlash against foreign languages in general, competition from
>other languages (including Slavic), ...). What are people DOING to combat
>the trend and what if anything WORKS? Or DOESN'T work. It is hard to assign
>cause-and-effect, but is there the feeling that putting effort into, say,
>publicity or changes in program content has the effect of attracting more
>students? For the purposes of my question, could we consider just getting
>students in first-year classrooms? Retention is a separate question, with
>its own strategies.
>
>Gil Rappaport
>Univ. of Texas at Austin

First, retention is a critical question with us.  Retention was less than
50% ( first to third term, 1986) but has increased to 75% (1992-94).  If
this increase in retention had not occurred, our enrollment statistics
would be truly abyssmal.

We have attempted a "Russian Arena" general advising forum and put an
advertisment "Study Russian Now" in the UO student newspaper.  The effect
of these publicity efforts is hard to calculate. It did not result in a net
increase.   Likewise, it is uncertain how our summer program is meshing
with our school year program, since the majority of our students in the
first year of an expanded summer language program were enrolled at the UO
Spring, 1995.  Publicity efforts to Oregon high schools were contemplated
in 1995, but never occurred.   The number of Oregon high school students
having significant Russian preparation (ie, ready to enter second year)
seems to be less than the number of emigrees and others of Russian speaking
backgroundwho are looking for official certification of their Russian
proficiency (major, area studies certificate, etc).  Others on this
newsgroup have alluded to this population.  Meeting their requirements
would seem to be in line with most University policies but it would be
helpful to have input.

Martha Sherwood, Russian