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

[siskron at SFSU.EDU]

The situation at SFSU was that representatives of the University
Administration proposed to cut the Russian Program to a minor from a
Graduate and major programs. We were told that if we chose to fight
the cuts, we could keep the Program intact if we won the vote in the
Academic Senate. We had extensive support in the form of letters and
resolutions from the City of San Francisco, the Academic and Russian
speaking communities. The student newspaper ran a series of articles  
on us because we were one of the few programs that resisted the cuts.  
The support of the Academic Community was simply heroic. Kathleen  
Dillon actually attended a hearing and bore witness to the bad faith  
of the administration. We decided to give up the graduate program (UC  
Berkeley and Stanford have excellent graduate programs, both located  
in the Bay Area) and insisted on  keeping the major. We won the vote  
in the Academic Senate to keep the  major. The administration  
disregarded the vote in the Academic Senate, broke its word and cut  
the program down to a minor. Our dean was quoted in SF Chronicle  
characterizing Russian as
"esoteric." This is in a state that has the highest concentration of  
Russian speakers outside of New York. The only program that still has  
a Russian major in the CSU system is in San Diego. This, of course,  
does not mean that others should not resist these cuts. It would be  
good to hear from someone who actually won one of these battles.
Katerina Siskron, Program Coordinator, SFSU

Quoting Prof Steven P Hill <s-hill4 at UIUC.EDU>:

> 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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