Macalester graduates extol merits of budget cut-threatened Russian department

Dear Editor:

After graduation I spent two years as an associate for Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus with Human Rights Watch, received a Fulbright to study in the Republic of Georgia and now work with schools and a non-governmental organization in Tbilisi. As someone with almost no talent for languages at all, I can testify that the program at Macalester was tailor-made for the study of Russian. It is an extremely difficult language to learn as an adult, requiring an almost inhuman patience on the part of the teacher. Small classes, intensive teacher-student interaction and serious motivating factors are needed to make any progress. The only reasons I made any headway at all, I believe, is because, for one, the faculty was dedicated; for the second, because the international politics of the region could not be grasped without the language.

This is the main reason I believe Macalester should put its support behind the advancement of its Russian program. This part of the world is huge, and important in a geopolitical sense. And although the Soviet Union has fallen apart, Russian is still used everywhere and it is changing into a regional language and even replacing English in many forums. In Baku alone, for example, there are over 150 Russian schools; in Georgia, the new generation of students is again learning Russian.

Macalester graduates are often touted as having something special to contribute to world, and the international population of post-Soviet intellectual and physical space without their voices would be much poorer and less diverse.

Elizabeth Eagen ’00
 

Dear Editor:

I look back fondly at the years I spent studying Russian with Gitta, Jim von Geldern and Peter Weisensel. They positively influenced my life more than they know. Back then, I actually feared a second year of Russian language. Learning Russian was not easy, but Russian literature and history excited me. I became so fascinated with St. Petersburg on study abroad that I returned after graduation to tutor English.

A drop in Russian majors at Macalester probably correlates to the fact that Russia appears to be “under control.” But a brief look at Russian history shows that Russia is predictably unpredictable. The media has turned its eye away from Russia and towards the Middle East; the reality is that under Vladimir Putin, an ex-KGB member, journalists are being silenced. And the horror in Chechnya continues. Also, if the United States continues on this path through the Middle East, there may be conflicting Russian and American interests. Relations between our two countries could again be dynamic.

Politics aside, it seems a shame that a competitive liberal arts institution such as Macalester would fail to provide its students sufficient exposure to the great literature of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Gogol, Akhmatova and Chekov. By studying the country’s history, especially the Soviet era, students are forced to draw important conclusions about their own roles as individuals within a society. To truly benefit, this period must be examined in depth from all angles: literature, history, music, film, etc. Furthermore, without higher-level language courses to challenge them, those students returning from a Russian travel-abroad experience would become frustrated.

Gwen (Griffiths) Prasolov ’93
 

Dear Editor:

I am writing in support of maintaining the Russian department at Macalester. I studied Russian at Macalester because it was different. I had studied French in high school and it was easy, but Russian? Russian was hard, it was exotic and it made my career.

I started taking Russian because it was different, but the reality is that there are about 277 million Russian speakers in the world and today I use Russian nearly every day in my research both in the U.S. and in Russia, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. There is something to be said for studying languages that are difficult and exotic, for giving a small number of interested students the option to open up a whole new world and enrollments alone should not determine the fate of a program.

Macalester has a very strong base in its current program and should not undermine what has been, from the perspective of its alumni, a very successful program.

Laura L. Adams ’90
 

Homocoming Dance made for a Friday evening to forget

Dear Editor:

I can’t breathe.

That’s all I could think as my body was crushed by an uncertain number of frustrated students in drag trying to get inside the Homocoming dance. Where did it all go wrong?

I had arrived at Kagin a little later than my friends that Friday evening and was a bit dismayed to see the large crowd of over a hundred students that had accumulated outside by 11:30 or so. I had heard from one of my friends that the reason for the hold-up was the fire code, and that something similar had happened last year. As I made my way into the crowd, my point of entry was immediately sealed off by bodies. We seemed to be moving closer to the doors, but then everything stopped. And people kept on coming.

After 15 minutes or so, I was inside the revolving glass doors. Then it stopped again. Trapped. After a few minutes, it became so hot, stuffy and crammed that I could hardly breathe. And then came the wandering hands—someone’s hand was making its way up my thigh, while another girl behind me started pulling down the strap to my tank top. There’s a difference between being grinded against or swiftly groped in a dance, and being felt up in the midst of confusion and panic. Honestly, I felt violated.

The security guards (I think there were two) started pushing back on the revolving doors, and I found myself, once again, outside. Still, I couldn’t move, and people were beginning to get really pissed. My sandaled feet were already purple from being trampled on, and now I was getting elbowed and scratched. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore, and I slowly pushed my way out of the riotous crowd. All said and done, I was stuck in the mob for 20 minutes, and ended up getting separated from my friends and spending a lonely night in my Kirk single.

So again I ask: what went wrong? I found out later that the ballroom can safely accommodate a little over 600 people, but previous years’ QU dances have yielded a much larger attendance (more like 75 percent of the school’s population, not including kids from other area colleges). And from what I hear, something similar happened last year. Right now, I’m incredibly disappointed in the lack of planning on the part of the organizers and the college. The dance in 2001 was in the Fieldhouse, which as far as I know houses the entire student body. Why the change of locations? I really hope it wasn’t simply because Kagin is more “elegant.” And why were there only three people in charge of crowd control?

Believe me when I say that I’m NOT advocating an end to Homocoming. I’ve enjoyed myself thoroughly in previous years, as have most students. And I think it can be both fun and safe, but not if it’s carried out in the same fashion. First, it needs to be held somewhere that can fit the entire student body. Secondly, it needs to be staffed by more people. I don’t think I’m the only one who had a less-than-magical Friday evening. I really hope that next year’s Homocoming is planned with a little more foresight.

Marissa Weyer ’05