risk of Russ. prog. liquidation (Randolph Coll.)

[Kristine Shmakov]

Dear Steven and other,

The Russian program at Portland Community College was never actually  
targeted for elimination. A few years ago, our entire college was  
undergoing severe budget cuts and the administration was scrutinizing  
all programs for possible reduction or elimination. As a preventative  
measure, I collected letters of support from the Slavic field and met  
with the administration to explain how critical Russian is in Oregon  
and Washington. This strategy worked and my program was left alone,  
though the college did lose about 15 full time positions, including  
one full time French position, and closed several programs. My  
program has actually expanded now to include two culture classes and  
a 19th century literature course, which are taught in English. This  
winter we had 80 students enrolled in 4 sections of first year  
Russian, 19 in second year and 25 in Russian culture. Our spring  
enrollments should be about the same. So things worked out well for  
us, and my program is flourishing. Now that Russian has been deemed a  
"critical need" language and a K-16 Russian immersion flagship  
program has been opened in the state, we should be safe for the  
foreseeable future.

I hope things will work out similarly with Klawa's program.

Kristine Shmakov


On Mar 16, 2008, at 11:21 PM, Prof Steven P Hill wrote:

> Dear colleagues and Prof Thresher:
>
> Klawa Thresher's message from Randolph (see below) reminds me of
> similar depts./programs that were in jeopardy a few years ago, and
> which were discussed on this list-server.   If memory serves, such
> situations had existed in San Francisco (was it San Fran. State  
> Univ.?)
> and in Portland, OR (was it Portland State College?).
>
> Does anyone out there know how those two situations eventually
> worked out?
>
> Hoping for the best,
> Steven P Hill,
> University of Illinois.
> _____________________________________________________________
>
> Date: Mon 17 Mar 01:00:39 CDT 2008
> From:  <LISTSERV at bama.ua.edu>
> Subject: Re: GETPOST SEELANGS
> To: "Steven P. Hill" <s-hill4 at UIUC.EDU>
> Date: Sun, 16 Mar 2008 16:25:12 -0400
> From: Klawa Thresher <kthresher at RANDOLPHCOLLEGE.EDU>
> Subject: Russian Program to be eliminated
>
> Dear Colleagues,
> I am trying to gather some information that might help save our  
> Russian
> program, which our new president has said will be cut because he feels
> that Russian is no longer relevant.  If you know of any Russian  
> programs
> that were threatened with closing but were saved and are still
> flourishing (and that could be a relative term), I would very much
> appreciate getting information about them.
> I know that this happened at Ohio State, the University of  
> Pittsburg and
> Macalaster College. Since I do not know the details, if colleagues at
> those institutions could give me some information (especially
> statistics) I would be very grateful.
> I would appreciate getting this information as soon as possible, as I
> will be having a hearing on this on Friday (yes, Good Friday!)
> You can send this to me at kthresher at randolphcollege.edu
> Thank you in advance,
> Klawa Thresher
> __________________________________________________________________
>
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