every program matters

[Benjamin Rifkin]

Dear SEELANGers:

An AATSEEL member at a small college wrote me in response to my
previous message posted to this list. In part this individual wrote:

>what about some programs which don't have high enrollments to boast
>about and need real help from our profession? Your reply to Ms
>Hutchinson is disappointing because it assumes that if the program has
>small enrollments -- something is wrong with it.

In case others in the field may have misunderstood my intention, I am
writing again to the SEELANGs list to clarify:

I'm sorry for the misunderstanding. I did not mean to disregard the
importance of smaller programs.  I was responding to Jill's message
and the implication that enrollments were the basis for the decision
of the university administration to eliminate the program.  For that
reason alone, I was looking for stories of increasing enrollments to
encourage the administration to see that Russian could be grown.  In
the case of smaller schools, ... smaller enrollments are to be
expected.  I would hope that an enlighted administration would
understand the value of having a Russian program in place even when
enrollments may be small or when there are few majors or minors.

As President of AATSEEL, I am ready to help ANY AATSEEL member make
arguments to his/her institutional administration to advance the
cause of the study of Slavic languages and cultures, regardless of
the size of the institution or program.  Although I myself teach at a
large research university in the context of a Slavic Department with
over 60 majors, I am personally and professionally committed to doing
what I can to help any and every Slavic program that I can.

We are a field that is prone to significant fluctuations in
enrollments (for all kinds of reasons) and I believe I speak on
behalf of all of AATSEEL when I say that EVERY Slavic language and
literature program matters.

If there's anything I can do to help you or your program, please let me know.

Sincerely,

Ben Rifkin

--
=================
Benjamin Rifkin

Professor of Slavic Languages, Slavic Dept., UW-Madison
1432 Van Hise Hall, 1220 Linden Dr.
Madison, WI  53706 USA
voice: 608/262-1623; fax: 608/265-2814
http://polyglot.lss.wisc.edu/slavic/rifkin/

Director of the Russian School
Middlebury College, Middlebury, VT  05753
voice:  802/443-5533; fax: 802/443-5394
http://www.middlebury.edu/~ls/russian/

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