Why students do not study Russian anymore

[Catharine Nepomnyashchy]

Jumping a bit belatedly into this discussion, I would like to address an
important point raised in postings by Sibelan Forrester and Kristina
Efimenko:  advising.  There is ample evidence that our colleagues in other
disciplines and administrators who advise incoming college students do
discourage them from taking Russian (at least in their freshman year),
because it is "hard."  To counter this trend, my colleagues and I in the
Barnard College Slavic Department took up advising freshmen (or first-year
students, as we call them at Barnard) four years ago.  We were, at our
request, given mostly students who had either studied Russian in high
school or expressed interest in studying Russian.  Our first class of
advisees graduated in May, and the results of this "intervention" were
striking:  we had seven Russian majors (including literature majors,
Russian Regional Studies Majors, and double majors with other
disciplines), up from a low of zero the preceding year.  We continue to
advise first-year students, and we continue to see a good crop of majors
in our future.  I would add that Barnard has long had a Regional Studies
(formerly Soviet Studies) Major, which was earlier housed in
the Political Science Department, but moved about six years ago to the
Slavic Department.  Students in that major take four years of Russian, two
literature courses, two history courses, one political science, one
"other" (Russian related), and two seminars of senior thesis work.
Finally, after years of being largely shunned by the growing emigre
population at Barnard, we are now seeing more and more native speakers in
our courses. Without going into the probable reasons for this, I would say
that a number of emigres have found a "major niche" in our department by
opting for a Comparative Literature major (with Russian as one of their
languages and one of their two major advisors in our department) or for a
double major in Russian and, for example, political science.  In sum,
then, our experience has suggested that Slavic Departments today can
improve enrollments and number of majors by taking an active role in
advising incoming students, creating regional studies majors, and
encouraging double majors with other disciplines.  Finally, let me say a
word in defense of our current students.  Personally I find them much more
intellectually sophisticated and skeptical than I was in college and far
more willing to challenge conventions and break new ground in their work.
While not all aspects of "student-centered" approaches to education are
always good, at its best it encourages students to engage, rather than
simply "memorize" ideas.

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