ACTR Letter in Support of the Russian Program at Ohio University
Ohio University Board of Trustees ([email protected])
Dr. M. Duane Nellis, President, Ohio University ([email protected])
Dr. Elizabeth Sayrs, Provost, Ohio University ([email protected])
Dr. Florenz Plassmann, Dean, College of Arts & Sciences ([email protected])
Professor Christopher Coski, Chair, Department of Modern Languages ([email protected])
June 3, 2020
Dear President Nellis, Provost Sayrs, and Dean Plassmann:
On behalf of the American Council of Teachers of Russian (ACTR) Board of Directors and the organization’s membership, we strongly oppose the recent decision to terminate Russian faculty Dr. Mila Shevchenko, Associate Professor of Instruction and Ms.Tetyana Dovbnya, Visiting Assistant Professor of Russian. As they are the only two faculty members teaching Russian language courses at Ohio University, eliminating their positions will end one of the region’s top programs.
While we understand the need for institutions of higher education to mitigate the financial crisis caused by COVID-19, the decision to eliminate the university’s Russian program goes against one of Ohio University’s core values that “[s]trong undergraduate programs with a liberal arts core are a vital and necessary foundation” for students’ academic success. Learning Russian not only contributes to your university’s liberal arts curriculum, it plays a pivotal role in helping prepare students for the demands of the job market by developing their intercultural competence and critical thinking skills.
Since its establishment in 1974, ACTR has been a leader in promoting the study of Russian language, literature, culture, and linguistics. In its role as a division of the American Councils for International Education, ACTR has advocated for the advancement of Russian language proficiency for students and professionals across the U.S. Our work as educators and cultural ambassadors has shown the immense value learning the Russian language continues to have for the implementation of U.S. foreign policy in Russophone countries and the development of commercial, scientific and cross-cultural relations between the U.S. and Russia.
In dismantling the Russian program, you lose the university’s leadership in an area where OU has always been recognized as such. You are also robbing your undergraduates of the opportunity to engage productively and holistically with a region of the world that is more important geopolitically today than ever before. Russian language has been and will continue to be a key to understanding a part of the world that shapes global relations. For this reason, the U.S. Department of Defense designated Russian as a critical language through the David L. Boren National Security Education Act of 1991. Russian language proficiency is a necessary, in-demand skill for numerous government agencies, regardless of whether Russia is viewed as an adversary or a partner. Federal support of Russian language study through the Language Flagship Program, the Critical Language Scholarship, Project GO, and the STARTALK Program demonstrate the importance of achieving proficiency for U.S. domestic and foreign policy.
Russian language has played a central role in the lives of numerous OU alumni who have condemned the closure of the program and spoken out passionately in support of their professors and the education they received while at OU. We urge you to hear these alumni, and the hundreds of other signatories who have spoken out against the termination of OU’s Russian program and to reinstate the positions of professors Shevchenko and Dovbnya.
Sincerely,
American Council of Teachers of Russian (ACTR) Board of Directors
Natalia Ushakova, Staten Island Technical High School, ACTR President
Alla Smyslova, Columbia University, ACTR Vice-President
Dan Davidson, Bryn Mawr College
Richard Brecht, University of Maryland
Nina Bond, Franklin & Marshall College
Tony Brown, Brigham Young University
Robert Channon, Purdue University,
Evgeny Dengub, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Irina Dubinina, Brandeis University
Ruth Edelman, Tenafly High School
Elena Farkas, Director of Adult English Learning Center
Tom Garza, University of Texas
Peter Merrill, Whittle School & Studios
Diane Nemec-Ignashev, Carleton College
Elizabeth Lee Roby, Friends School of Baltimore
Colleen Lucey, University of Arizona
John Rook, Smith Middle School
Cynthia A. Ruder, University of Kentucky
Betsy Sandstrom, Thomas Jefferson H.S. of Science and Technology
Jane Shuffelton, Brighton High School
Mara Sukholutskaya , East Central University
Mark Trotter, Indiana University
Irwin Weil, Northwestern University
Dr. M. Duane Nellis, President, Ohio University ([email protected])
Dr. Elizabeth Sayrs, Provost, Ohio University ([email protected])
Dr. Florenz Plassmann, Dean, College of Arts & Sciences ([email protected])
Professor Christopher Coski, Chair, Department of Modern Languages ([email protected])
June 3, 2020
Dear President Nellis, Provost Sayrs, and Dean Plassmann:
On behalf of the American Council of Teachers of Russian (ACTR) Board of Directors and the organization’s membership, we strongly oppose the recent decision to terminate Russian faculty Dr. Mila Shevchenko, Associate Professor of Instruction and Ms.Tetyana Dovbnya, Visiting Assistant Professor of Russian. As they are the only two faculty members teaching Russian language courses at Ohio University, eliminating their positions will end one of the region’s top programs.
While we understand the need for institutions of higher education to mitigate the financial crisis caused by COVID-19, the decision to eliminate the university’s Russian program goes against one of Ohio University’s core values that “[s]trong undergraduate programs with a liberal arts core are a vital and necessary foundation” for students’ academic success. Learning Russian not only contributes to your university’s liberal arts curriculum, it plays a pivotal role in helping prepare students for the demands of the job market by developing their intercultural competence and critical thinking skills.
Since its establishment in 1974, ACTR has been a leader in promoting the study of Russian language, literature, culture, and linguistics. In its role as a division of the American Councils for International Education, ACTR has advocated for the advancement of Russian language proficiency for students and professionals across the U.S. Our work as educators and cultural ambassadors has shown the immense value learning the Russian language continues to have for the implementation of U.S. foreign policy in Russophone countries and the development of commercial, scientific and cross-cultural relations between the U.S. and Russia.
In dismantling the Russian program, you lose the university’s leadership in an area where OU has always been recognized as such. You are also robbing your undergraduates of the opportunity to engage productively and holistically with a region of the world that is more important geopolitically today than ever before. Russian language has been and will continue to be a key to understanding a part of the world that shapes global relations. For this reason, the U.S. Department of Defense designated Russian as a critical language through the David L. Boren National Security Education Act of 1991. Russian language proficiency is a necessary, in-demand skill for numerous government agencies, regardless of whether Russia is viewed as an adversary or a partner. Federal support of Russian language study through the Language Flagship Program, the Critical Language Scholarship, Project GO, and the STARTALK Program demonstrate the importance of achieving proficiency for U.S. domestic and foreign policy.
Russian language has played a central role in the lives of numerous OU alumni who have condemned the closure of the program and spoken out passionately in support of their professors and the education they received while at OU. We urge you to hear these alumni, and the hundreds of other signatories who have spoken out against the termination of OU’s Russian program and to reinstate the positions of professors Shevchenko and Dovbnya.
Sincerely,
American Council of Teachers of Russian (ACTR) Board of Directors
Natalia Ushakova, Staten Island Technical High School, ACTR President
Alla Smyslova, Columbia University, ACTR Vice-President
Dan Davidson, Bryn Mawr College
Richard Brecht, University of Maryland
Nina Bond, Franklin & Marshall College
Tony Brown, Brigham Young University
Robert Channon, Purdue University,
Evgeny Dengub, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Irina Dubinina, Brandeis University
Ruth Edelman, Tenafly High School
Elena Farkas, Director of Adult English Learning Center
Tom Garza, University of Texas
Peter Merrill, Whittle School & Studios
Diane Nemec-Ignashev, Carleton College
Elizabeth Lee Roby, Friends School of Baltimore
Colleen Lucey, University of Arizona
John Rook, Smith Middle School
Cynthia A. Ruder, University of Kentucky
Betsy Sandstrom, Thomas Jefferson H.S. of Science and Technology
Jane Shuffelton, Brighton High School
Mara Sukholutskaya , East Central University
Mark Trotter, Indiana University
Irwin Weil, Northwestern University
