Why Johns Hopkins University closes Russian programs 

Фото: Depositphotos

At Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, close Russian studios as the main direction (major), reported edition Inside Higher Education. Students will now be able to choose Russian as a secondary direction (minor).

Programs in the Russian language, literature and culture have been small before. They were led by teachers from a neighboring college Goucher. Head of Russian programs at the university prof. Olya Samilenko told the publication that she was shocked by the cancellation of the programs, especially as Russia's influence grows in the world and in American affairs. “This is a crazy decision based not on the quality of the program, but on something else that we can’t understand,” she said. The university administration attributes this decision to the different teaching approaches between them and Goucher College, but Prof. Samilenko claims that she was previously told that programs were canceled due to low attendance. She was also told that the programs were “too advanced” and were taught in Russian, which did not meet the goals of the university’s Language Teaching Center.

This is all the more strange because, according to the executive director of the Association of Modern Languages ​​Paul Krebs, in the Baltimore-Washington region there has been a strong increase in recording in Russian studios, including the George Washington University, the University of Maryland and the US Naval Academy.

“It’s always unfortunate when a university decides to cut some language, and this move appears to have been planned before the current surge in interest in US-Russian relations,” he says.

Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Baccalaureate and Professor of Biology at the School of Arts and Sciences of the Krieger University, Joel F. Schildbach, said that it was necessary to make a choice by offering language and literary courses, or “to provide wider sentences in Russian that would benefit much more students in including hundreds of students in international studies and political science. ”

According to a report from the Association of Slavic, Eastern European and Eurasian Studies, all programs were severely affected after the Senate reduced the funding for 2016% under Title IV (on the prohibition of discrimination) by 35. The exception is the Harriman Institute at Columbia University and the Davis Center at Harvard, which has its own funds for programs related to Slavic, Eastern European and Eurasian topics.

Confusion reigns among researchers and teachers of subjects related to the former USSR and Eastern Europe. On 12 hits ForumDaily to university staff to comment on what was happening, we received polite refusals under various pretexts. In personal conversations, people from different universities in America say that their situation is difficult - they are also afraid of cuts.

According to various reports, today, subjects related to the post-Soviet space study 2-4 times less people than in 1990. And often the proposed subjects are far from the main directions, and focuses on the racial gender and postcolonial themes that are currently in the university, where can get research grants.

Examples included such topics as “Africa in the Soviet agitprop of Stalin's times” and “Gender roles in the Ukrainian serf village”. A doctoral student at a prestigious university in the East Coast complained that the whole semester was aware of one of the national languages ​​of the former USSR who were forced to read tedious texts on electrical engineering just because they were written by a woman. Some researchers, however, express cautious optimism. A professor at a university in the northeastern United States joked that "the cold war is good for our business."

All in one voice at the same time complain that the reduction in education has led over the past 25 years to a loss of expertise in the affairs of Russia, Ukraine and other post-Soviet countries, which undermines the interests of America. One of my interlocutors indicated that this was strongly manifested during the crisis in Ukraine, for which the American establishment was clearly unprepared.

True, the examination remains in various intelligence agencies, but it is of a very specific nature. “War is too serious a matter to be entrusted to generals,” said one of our interlocutors. “Even if it’s a propaganda war.”

“What is the price of these studies if no one among American Sovietologists, Russian scientists, Kremlinologists, etc., could see the collapse of the Soviet bloc?” - retired to me, retired from Florida, Harry K, a retired operative of one of the American special services. “They predicted the Soviet policy of fortune-telling by order of members of the Politburo, appearing on the podium of the Mausoleum, and now they are also guessing about Putin’s facial expressions.” This question was asked to experts more than once. Zbigniew Brzezinski once answered a similar question: "Well, how could I know that Khrushchev would be removed if Khrushchev himself did not know about it."

PS Following the footsteps of my material in Forum Daly, I received a message that Carnegie Corporation (New York) announced the allocation of three grants of one million dollars each to strengthen Russian studies at American universities. As part of the competitive process, a panel of independent experts decided to provide three million-dollar research grants each to Columbia University (New York), Indiana University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Carnegie Corporation decided to provide grants after receiving the report Association of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) “The State of Russian Studies in the United States” (ordered by Carnegie Corporation). The compilers of the report came to the conclusion that in many respects the study and research of Russian studies (which traditionally includes research in post-Soviet countries) is still at a high level. However, according to the ASEEES report, Russian studies and related subjects have declined in recent years due to low priority in the eyes of university authorities and cuts in federal funding.

The report indicated the main reasons for concern about the state of affairs. In particular, the drafters of the report concluded that “research in the social sciences is in crisis; undoubted decrease in the interest and number of both graduate students and teachers ”. The findings of the commission led to the fact that the leadership of Carnegie Corporation decided to allocate funds to maintain a high level of expertise in Russian affairs in the United States through institutional investments. The award of grants is aimed at encouraging universities to create specialized Russian educational, research and awareness-raising programs, as well as to facilitate cooperation with Russian academic institutions and communities.

The attention shown by Carnegie Corporation to research in Russia underlines the importance of Russia for the United States. It
evidence of the need to further improve education and study of Russia in America, expand the number of researchers and deepen the experience of researchers, analysts and practitioners working in this industry.

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