A proposal by Dean Elizabeth Langland to cut Russian language instruction at UC Davis has angered faculty members who say that without the classes they will not be able to offer a Russian major.

In mid-January Langland, dean of the Division of Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies, met with Russian program director Daniel Rancour to discuss her concerns about low enrollment in Russian language classes. The classes often have fewer students enrolled than the minimums suggested by the UC Academic Senate.

"For several years we have had low enrollment, especially in second- and third-year Russian," she said. "Every decision to invest instructional dollars one place is a decision not to invest in another."

According to Rancour-Laferriere, Langland told him that the program would be dismantled beginning in the fall.

Langland said she originally said the division would no longer fund the program’s two part-time lecturers – a decision that would save about $50,000. She also asked for advice on how the program could be continued with two faculty members, including Rancour-Laferriere, as language instructors. That proposition generated a widely distributed e-mail letter from the Department of German and Russian to Langland, university administration and members of the Slavic community.

Langland has since decided that the division will pay for one lecturer. She believes that the program could continue if faculty members were to increase their teaching load from four to five courses a year – the responsibility suggested by the UC Office of the President. Most faculty members in her division teach four classes, Langland said, but those courses are usually larger than some in Russian, which have had as few as two students enroll.

"I’m trying to ensure there are equivalencies in load (in the humanities division)," she said.

Langland said she has asked that programs not meeting a workload level of 600 student-credit hours per faculty position increase the number of classes their faculty members teach.

The Russian program, consisting of language, composition and literature classes, stands at 406 credit hours. If the Russian faculty members, Rancour-Laferriere and Professor Yuri Druzhnikov, each taught five classes, the program could offer three more classes, Langland said.

The proposals are unworkable, said Rancour-Laferriere, because of the additional requirements that faculty members must conduct and publish research.

"There are simply too many things to teach," he said. "The only way we could (maintain the program) would be to teach 8 or 9 classes a piece. That’s ludicrous."

The program is already struggling to offer its full slate of courses, Rancour-Laferriere said. Last year longtime Russian professor Harriet Murav moved to the Department of Comparative Literature but also taught some Russian courses. This year Murav took a post at the University of Illinois, but no instructor has taken over her classes, Rancour-Laferriere said.

Students like Danny Milks, a junior Russian and managerial economics major, says students have noticed the decline in available courses. "Some people I know are taking Russian, but they aren’t majoring in it," he said. "There aren’t enough classes."

Langland said she is sympathetic, but she must respond to student demand for other languages. The university frequently gets requests from students for more Chinese and Japanese classes. And since Sept. 11, students have also asked that UC Davis teach languages spoken in the Middle East and Central Asia like Arabic and Farsi, she said. This quarter, a Sacramento City College Farsi course with more than 20 students enrolled is being taught at UC Davis.

Milks, who is also the president of the campus Russian Club, said the university’s decision to add languages shouldn’t come at the expense of other courses. "You have to talk about globalization, but they shouldn’t meet (demand) by cutting other programs," he said. "There shouldn’t be competition among languages."

Rancour-Laferriere said he disputes Langland’s assertion that interest in Russian has declined. This year’s first-year Russian course has 18 students enrolled. And while many students do not take the second-year course, third-year Russian typically has a strong enrollment, Rancour-Laferriere said. That’s the course that a growing number of "heritage" Russian speakers at UC Davis.

Langland said she is waiting to hear from Rancour-Laferriere to see how the Russian major can be reconfigured. But Rancour-Laferriere said the program is already bare bones enough.

"If there are those cutbacks there is nothing left," he said. "It is a major in basketweaving."