Preserving Knox College B.A. program in Russian

[Jeanette Owen]

Dear Colleagues:

 

I am posting the following request for letters of support for
maintaining the B.A. program in Russian on behalf of Professor W.G.
Fiedorow, recently retired from Knox College. As a graduate of Knox
College, I will be writing a personal letter of support. We would be
grateful for any additional letters from the profession as well. 

 

Byvshie studenty i studentki:

I am retired, as of January 4.  After spending four months in Russia
directing the ACM Krasnodar Program, I returned to Galesburg. I have
been told recently that the Knox College administration is planning on
dropping the Russian major, citing financial reasons for doing so. As
you may already know, in the 33 years of my career at Knox we have seen
our Russian

majors go on to earn PH.D.s (twelve of them, one from Harvard), M.A.s
(twelve of them,

one from Harvard). About sixty of our students have a BA in Russian or
Russian Area Studies; a number of them have studied Russian for two
years. About 400 students and adults have participated in our three-week
December trip to the Soviet Union and to Russia. Many of these students,
and you are probably among them, have achieved a great deal in their
lives since graduating from Knox College. It is hoped that your voices
would have acquired importance and that you would an effect in this
matter. If you feel, as I do, that Knox College would be diminished in
the eyes of prospective students and in the eyes of past students by the
loss of its Russian major, please send your reaction to this possibility
to:

 

Dean Breitborde (lbreitbo at knox.edu)
<http://webmail.west.cox.net/agent/MobNewMsg?to=lbreitbo@knox.edu)>  and
to the president of the college, Roger Taylor (rtaylor at knox.edu)
<http://webmail.west.cox.net/agent/MobNewMsg?to=rtaylor@knox.edu)> 

 

In the recent years we have experienced some difficulties; our numbers
have been going down, as they have been all over the nation, after the
fall of the Soviet Union. But in the past 2-3 years there has been a
notable renaissance of interest in the Slavic World.  For example, four
of the eleven students who participated in the Krasnodar program were
from Knox (the others were from Grinnell, Cornell, Wabash, Oberlin...).
Fourteen students were enrolled in beginning Russian last fall; five in
second-year Russian (two of them are applying to the Krasnodar program).
Sixteen students traveled to Russia last December. Twenty-eight students
are now taking a course on Dostoevsky.

 

Please forward this message to anyone who would be interested in the
fate of the Russian major at Knox College.

 

Sincerely,

 

W.G.Fiedorow
wfiedoro at knox.edu

Knox College  Box 68

Galesburg, IL 61401

tel. 309 343 0469

 

 

 

 

Jeanette Owen
Assistant Professor of Russian

Department of Languages & Literatures

Arizona State University

P.O. Box 870202

Tempe, AZ 85287-0202

 

tel 480.965.4599
fax 480.965.0135

 


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