Russian Studies programs

[Michael Clark Troy]

Before this debate over saving Russian programs dies down, I thought I might
weigh in with the  opinion of a Slavist recently driven into the arms of
commerce.

First off, regarding the necessity of educating students practically so they
can get jobs.  The vast majority of tasks performed in private sector
employment are so specialized in terms of content that students could not in
any case be trained for them, nor do employers expect college students entering
the job market to enter with tremendous sector-specific skills.  Students who
undertake "practical" courses of study at liberal arts colleges signal nothing
so much as their ability and readiness to subordinate their real desires to
those of a market, to meld with a superego.  Employers DO seem to prize this
feature.

There is one skillset widely prized throughout the job marketplace, and that is
computer literacy, the ability to sit down at any computer and figure out how
to do what you need to do.  At a minimum, employers want people who can deal in
the various subdivisions of MSOffice:  Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and -- as a
bonus -- Access.  A wide range of applications fans out from this central
suite.  If we really wanted to make our students work-ready, we'd set up a
curriculum which encourages them to use more types of software than just the
word processor, without necessarily changing any of the content we touch upon.

But the idea of moving over to Business Russian and Technical Russian strikes
me as silly and self-destructive.  If you're going to teach students to
approach everything in an instrumental fashion, why bother being a humanist?
Why not just find a better-paying technical or administrative job for yourself?

No no no.  In these times of unprecedented wealth creation, which all too often
translates into SUVs, McMansions and McPapers, there is a greater need than
ever for the humanities (and for Dostoievskii in particular) to be taught well
and enchantingly.  Certainly religion can't begin do the job the human sciences
stole from it lo those many years ago.  If the humanities in general and
Slavics in specific are imploding, it's not because they're not practical
enough, it's because they've become insufficiently compelling. If the humanists
become grooms in the stables of technocracy, you'd better watch where you step.

Clark Troy

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