IV-B. Eight-Year Review Report (Annotated)

Internal Report on the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures

Preface

The following Academic Senate review of the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures was conducted during AY1999-2000 on the normal 8-yr cycle. The core of the review was the site visit on February 24 & 25, 2000 during which the four internal reviewers (Fred Burwick, UGC, Chris Stevens UGC, Elinor Ochs, GC, Harold Martinson, GC, Chair of Team) and the graduate student representative (Mark Quigley) were joined by the two external reviewers (David Bethea, Wisconsin, and Alan Timberlake, Berkeley). The site visit consisted of two full days of interviews with faculty, staff, students and administration. After the site visit, the external reviewers prepared and submitted a joint report (attached), based on the site visit plus additional data and information supplied by the Graduate Division and the Department. Meanwhile, the internal review team conducted additional interviews, as necessary, to clarify issues raised during the site visit. The following account is based on all of the above sources of information, and relies heavily on the report of the external reviewers (henceforth, ER).

Introduction

The Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at UCLA has, for decades, been recognized as one of the finest and most distinguished in the country. Not only are all the faculty individually of national or international stature, but also the department as a whole is unique in the breadth of its scholarship. This breadth is two-fold. First, while departments elsewhere tend to be strong in literature at the expense of linguistics, UCLA's strong literature component is paired with a linguistic component that is unmatched in the country.

This last part ("a linguistic component that is unmatched in the country") is debatable. There are many in the field who feel that the synchronic linguistic component of the UCLA Slavic Department has failed to remain current with linguistic theory. The diachronic linguistic component remains strong.)

Second, following a period during which good departments nationwide have trimmed non-Russian components from their programs, the department at UCLA has remained dedicated to maintaining its comprehensive Slavic character. In the future, UCLA's continued pre-eminence in Slavic Languages and Literatures will depend both on maintaining the quality of this faculty and on ensuring that adequate FTE are available to sustain its breadth.

Slavic studies, at UCLA as elsewhere, has been uniquely buffeted by international events in recent decades. Shortly after the last review, the initial euphoria following the collapse of the Soviet Union gave way to apathy-and a nationwide decline in Slavic studies enrollments. Now interest is picking up again and Slavic studies at UCLA has emerged from this dark period stronger in comparison to departments elsewhere and is in a privileged position to capitalize on the trend. Indeed, the department worked tirelessly during the dark period to expand and advertise its undergraduate offerings...

(It should be noted here that this effort was confined primarily to Olga Yokoyama and Olga Kagan, and was indeed opposed by a significant segment of the faculty...),

...and its undergraduate program is now probably among the best in the country. Undergraduates interviewed during the site visit were effusive in their praise of the program. In the future, to maintain its stature in the field, the department must turn its attention single-mindedly to the graduate program, which is in a state of complete disrepair and endures only because of the resilience and quality of its surviving graduate students.

Faculty

The uniformly high quality of the faculty has been noted above, as has the remarkable breadth of scholarship in the department. However, recent departures have left gaps in current coverage of the literature component that must be filled before the department will be recognized as truly balanced, having equally prestigious linguistic and literature components (ER, pp. 4-5).

This is problematic at two levels:

1. Not everyone in the department sees the need to achieve a "balance" between literature and linguistics. As was correctly noted, most Slavic departments barely have a linguistic presence, and many have none. Given this state of affairs, it is unclear why the UCLA Slavic department cannot remain the one department in the country with an emphasis on linguistics. This is not to say that the literature side of the department cannot also be of the highest quality, but not everyone sees the need for this aforementioned "balance". Indeed, even when one overlooks the wildly exaggerated claims made by the department as to placement of its graduates, it must be stated that it has been more successful than some (but not all) major Slavic departments in placing its literature graduates in tenure-track positions. Thus, it seems that in spite of the fact that this department has a profile tilting towards linguistics, it has nonetheless been relatively successful in placing its graduate students, thus begging the question, why change? If anything, it is the department's linguistic graduates who have had difficult times as of late competing for and obtaining tenure-track jobs.

2. The question of "prestige" is also problematic, especially with regard to this department. For years, the department's reputation has been measured by the prestige of its faculty and its publications. What was not measured to any significant degree, and thus not taken into the calculations which determine a department's "prestige", is the effectiveness with which the faculty trains new scholars and allows them to contribute to the growth of the field in general. We feel that the failure to measure accurately this part of the department's obligation has contributed greatly to the current state of affairs now obtaining within the department. Many of the faculty feel that as long as their academic reputation remains strong and intact, they have carte blanche to run the program and interact with graduate students and staff alike in any manner they choose. The result may (or may not) be a continuing stream of high quality publications, but what cannot come out of this is a healthy graduate program, one in which the next generation of leading Slavic scholars will be trained. In the prevailing atmosphere, innovation and exploration of other aspects of our field and of other disciplines in an attempt to gain new perspective on our own discipline are not only not encouraged, they are actively discouraged and openly scorned. What is encouraged is very safe, very detailed work which will not embarrass the faculty, but which also takes no chances whatsoever and which contributes very little to the overall body of knowledge in our field.

We understand that, as a part of the faculty's responsibility in producing valued scholars, they must from time to time rein in overly enthusiastic graduate students who might want to run before they have learned to crawl. This is, in our view, both necessary and appropriate. However, when the attitude becomes so restrictive and so self-enclosed that outside influences aren't even allowed to filter in, then we feel that the faculty not only deprives the graduate student of the wide ranging liberal arts foundation necessary for innovative approaches to the type of scholarship which characterize leaders in any field of academic endeavor, but even worse, the faculty is then forced to take the less then ground-shaking papers and dissertations which result from this atmosphere and declare them significant.

This attitude that students learn here as graduate students cannot help but carry over into their professional lives, the result being that, with the exception of Gil Rappaport at the University of Texas, Austin, none of UCLA's Slavic linguistic graduates is even close to taking over the reins as a leader in the field. One former graduate student who left our department to continue his education at another university was quietly pulled aside by some members of that faculty and asked what the situation is with the linguistics faculty at UCLA: why, given the size and quality of that faculty, are the next generation of leaders in the field of Slavic linguistics not emerging? To those of us who are going through the UCLA program in Slavic linguistics, the answer to this question is clear.

Thus, we feel that we as students, and the field as a whole, would be better served by a department concerned less with difficult to quantify concepts such as "prestige" and more with the time it devotes to mentoring its graduate students in an intellectually open manner. We are confident that this would be a much better and more honest approach to the goal of obtaining prestige, since said prestige would emanate not only from the reputation of the faculty, but the quality of its graduates as measured by their ability to lead, and contribute to, the field.

Both external reviewers considered replacement of the 19th century specialist to be "absolutely crucial to the long-term health and viability of the department" (ER, p.4). This opinion was expressed repeatedly during the course of the site visit.

While a Golden Age specialist would of course bolster the literature profile of the department, we would emphasize that in the search for a highly regarded specialist in this field, UCLA should not lose sight of the problems that have led to the current state of affairs in the Slavic Department. From our point of view, better a young and fair-minded junior scholar than a highly regarded senior scholar who shares the opinions of the current faculty with regard to the treatment of graduate students.

Moreover, to raise the department to a position of unchallenged preeminence both reviewers argued that the appointment must be made at the tenured level (ER, p. 5, and repeated assertions during the site visit). The Dean has authorized a search at the assistant professor level. This search should continue, but it would be wise for the department simultaneously to try to identify a specific mid-career individual, highly respected in the field-and also here, who would be willing to move. The Dean may reconsider the rank if presented with a specific and compelling alternative.

The dilemma in this is that the ladder faculty are already 100% tenured, and only one of these is at the associate professor level. However, there were two faculty losses last year and the above appointment would replace only one of them. The external reviewers urge that the second FTE also be replaced, this time at the junior level (ER, p. 5) and with a twentieth century specialist which the department sorely needs ER, pp. 4 & 5). While the 19th century appointment is crifical to the stature of the department, the 20th century appointment also is very important programmatically and (given a senior 19th century appointment) is essential as an opportunity to bring in young blood.

As mentioned earlier, a hallmark of the Slavic Department at UCLA has been the breadth of its scholarship. Essential to maintaining this breadth is representation on the faculty of a permanent South Slavist, an area of expertise represented in most major programs in the country (ER, p.5). Currently this position is filled by an Adjunct appointment which has been satisfactory as a stop-gap measure but which does not give the position permanence.

For the record, the South Slavist position has been filled much, much more than "adequately" by the current adjunct professor. Not only are his publications outstanding, but so is his willingness to help so many students in our department and serve on committees as an outside member. As the leading department in the country in Slavic linguistics, the South Slavic position is fundamental, since the earliest attested Slavic writings are South Slavic in nature, and it is these writings which have influenced the development of a great many of the Slavic standard literary languages. Since the retirements of Birnbaum and Albijanic, this adjunct professor has pulled the entire weight of the department in this regard, in addition to being an excellent instructor in Serbo-Croatian, in which he has a truly native-speaker capacity.

The problem the he has encountered, and which those of us who are familiar with the linguistic program in the Slavic Department know all too well, is that, for whatever reason, he has fallen out of favor with those linguists who are identified in this report as "the two difficult faculty members...both of whom are in the linguistics program". Why he would be out of favor with them, no one of us could possibly know or understand, but given the respective histories with the people involved, it is not in the least difficult to infer with whom the problem lies.

Moreover, it makes it difficult for students because Adjuncts do not "count" on examination committees, and students hesitate to choose this area for their dissertations because they cannot be sure that the expertise will still be there when it comes time to read their theses.

The Slavic Department lost three FTE during the period under review. Ideally they should be replaced as outlined above, including a permanent South Slavist. However, recognizing that this may not be possible at the present time, but in view of the importance of making these appointments, we urge the department and the administration to explore aggressively the possibility of filling the 20th century and the South Slavist positions with joint appointments. This solution is being pursued increasingly across campus, and for a small department like Slavic would be adequate to maintain the breadth that has been a pillar of its reputation.

Strongly disagree. We need a full-time South Slavist. This department made its reputation on historical linguistics, and the key to historical linguistics in Slavic is South Slavic linguistics.

Undergraduate program (including language instruction)

The reader is referred to the department's excellent self-review (pp. 4-6) for a complete account of the department's many accomplishments in this area. The external reviewers, like the undergraduates mentioned earlier, were effusive in their praise of the Slavic undergraduate program (ER, pp. 1-2). Note that the 19th and 20th century literature appointments will be very important for the undergraduate program as well as for the reasons discussed above, as these areas (particularly 19th century) attract substantial enrollment.

However, while it is usual for literature to attract more students than linguistics, we wish to emphasize, along with the external reviewers (p. 2), that this should not be used as an excuse for the linguists not to participate in the undergraduate program. As the externals point out, "the linguists need not teach only highly specialized courses in linguistics per se." They, like the literature faculty can extend themselves to develop courses of more general interest, and thereby better serve their department and the university community at large. "The asymmetry in the utilization of faculty energy needs to be addressed" (ER p. 2).

Strongly agree. It is our feeling that the failure of linguistics faculty to participate in the undergraduate program is closely connected to their overall problems in dealing with students. Graduate students are, by their nature, easier to teach, and they are much, much less likely to challenge their professors, whereas undergraduates, whose success at the university is not dependent on just one or two faculty members, readily and freely question and challenge their instructors. It comes as absolutely no surprise that these difficult linguistic faculty members shy away from undergraduate courses.

It is also worth noting that the UCLA Slavic Department, which has always prided itself on its strength in linguistics, barely addresses this subject at the undergraduate level anymore, with only one linguistic course listed for undergrads, down from three a decade ago. The UCLA Slavic Department is hardly in a position to complain about the lack of preparation on the part of its incoming graduate students in the field of Slavic linguistics when its own undergraduate program is so deficient in this field.

Graduate Program

Student welfare. During the site visit the review team heard several amazing accounts of emotional abuse perpetrated on students by certain members of the faculty. So fearful were the students that several asked to meet in private "somewhere far from our dept" after the site visit was finished. These students told of still others who were too fearful to meet with us at all. These meetings led to additional interviews designed to assess the credibility of what was heard. In all, dozens of interviews were conducted with current students, former students, faculty and staff. The picture that emerged was one in which many students live in personal fear of specific faculty members, and in anxiety about their futures within a program perceived as capricious and self-serving. We note that the external reviewers devoted more space to this issue than to any other single aspect of the Slavic program despite the fact that they heard but a fraction of all the complaints.

The last part of this sentence--"...despite the fact that they heard but a fraction of all the complaints"--should be noted when reading the most recent comments of the two external reviewers in which they lend their strong support to the UCLA Slavic Department.

It is important to maintain the proper focus on what follows. The mandate to the review team was not to conduct a fact-finding mission or to determine the guilt or innocence of particular individuals, but rather to assess the welfare of the graduate students and to recommend corrective action, if necessary, to assure their well-being.

This then begs the question as to what exactly the mandate of the review team was. While we do not question the sincerity of the review team's efforts and while we acknowledge that, in comparison with other 8-year reviews, this review was indeed severe, it is nonetheless the case that this review focuses on but a fraction of the abuses that have occurred in this department over time. The review committee itself, as it was constituted, was simply incapable of doing the type of in-depth study of the department which would have been needed to present a true picture of the abuses that have become institutionalized there. There was, to our knowledge, no detailed (i.e. involving extensive review of all financial aid awards) investigation done into the system for distributing financial aid, nor was there any financial auditing of the department's funding accounts to ascertain the allegations made by students as to irregularities and inconsistencies in the distribution of financial aid. While the report states that former graduate students were contacted, in fact only a very small percentage of these former students were actually contacted.

If the mandate of the 8-year review committee did not include an in-depth investigation and analysis of the department's fiscal practices and did not include a comprehensive examination of all former graduate students, then who in the Administration is charged with looking into these matters? If the 8-year review committee was indeed not instructed to "conduct a fact-finding mission or to determine the guilt or innocence of particular individuals", then who is charged with this task? Graduate students in the Slavic Department took and continue to take considerable risk to their future careers by cooperating so closely and extensively with the 8-year review committee to uncover the abuses which have existed for years in this department. Now that some of these abuses have been discovered and now that the Administration has been alerted to the fact that such abuse is extensive and of long standing, what does the Administration plan to do about this? Is it the Administration's plan to be satisfied with what was uncovered in the 8-year review process, hoping that once reforms are made the situation will be forgotten, or, having been alerted by Slavic graduate students as to the real nature of the department, is the Administration going to authorize the real and in-depth type of investigation of this department that needs to be done? A failure to do this begs the question as to who, if anyone, controls the behavior of academic departments at UCLA. In addition, any such failure of the Administration to continue the investigation into the Slavic Department could create the impression that the Administration simply wants this problem to go away, to fade with time.

The Slavic Department, and by extension UCLA, is guilty not only of repeated and institutionalized abuse of its graduate students, but also of lying to its graduate students concerning funding and academics, resulting in students who have been forced out of the field, or in students who have been trying to hold on and suffering financially because of this. The Administration must realize that the UCLA Slavic Department is not a thing apart, not an academic entity "associated" with UCLA, but rather it is a part of UCLA. Moreover, it was UCLA's representative to the students, UCLA's conduit to students and the conduit by which UCLA monies were distributed to students. To the extent that the UCLA Slavic Department abused its powers and abused its students, it is to this same extent that UCLA as an academic institution abused power and abused its graduate students in the Slavic Department. UCLA has transgressed. UCLA has for decades harmed and wronged students in the Slavic Department. It is now incumbent upon UCLA to right that wrong, to make right what it has allowed to happen, and to do whatever is necessary, financially, academically, and professionally, to remedy the situation vis-a-vis those of its past and present graduate students adversely affected.

Thus, the issue is not whether any or all of what we heard is correct in its detail or interpretation. The issue is the emotional trauma perceived by the review team in the students entrusted to the care of this department. This is not to cast doubt on any part of what we were told. Great care was taken to ensure the legitimacy of the information upon which we have based the conclusions at the end of this report. Several case histories from different sources were compared and no example of any significant discrepancy was found. In other instances different case histories involving similar situations were compared across time. The consistency was remarkable, even between former students who had never met. But to emphasize again: regardless of the details, the fear and the anxiety among the affected students is real, it is deep, it has interfered with the education of many, and it has crushed the careers of some. This level of graduate program dysfunction is unprecedented in the collective experience of this review team.

Without exception all who spoke with us feared retribution if they were planning to make their career in Slavic studies, and we heard reports of both threatened and perceived retaliation. Some students, initially willing to tell their stories, later requested (even in tears) that we not use any details. Therefore, to preserve anonymity, we will present most information only in general terms, and the students, about half of whom were directly affected, will be referred to collectively. However, we begin our account below with one specific case history whose several facets reflect themes we were to hear repeated over and over. This student, whom we will call simply XX, did not fear recognition because she has left the field. The following is her story.

XX entered the program with excellent credentials. For various reasons-and on the advice of another faculty member-XX decided it was best to drop a particular graduate course during her second quarter. When XX spoke to the professor involved, the professor reportedly went on the offensive, not only insulting XX repeatedly, but also disparaging, with gestures and sarcasm, the other members of the faculty from whom XX had obtained advice. When exchanges like this continued unabated-and after being reduced to tears, XX concluded that she was merely a pawn in a jealous rivalry between this professor and other members of the faculty. Therefore, XX resolved to go to the Chair. According to XX the Chair responded with soothing words, and a statement to the effect that "there are problems among some of the faculty in this department. It is too bad that you have been caught in the middle of it. You just have to work around them." Accordingly, rather than addressing the problem, and with a comment to the effect that enrollment was low, the chair suggested that she re-enroll. Having heard numerous stories about the professor in question, and concluding that the Chair was merely circling the wagons, XX, in "the saddest decision I've ever made", left the program and the field. The "sad decision" quote above was not provided to us by XX simply for effect. Others have quoted her as saying at the time, "I have a broken heart .... This was the love of my life."

If the above case history were an isolated report it could justifiably be overlooked.

(We wonder at this statement. Even if it were just one person and one incident, why would the review committee think it would be "justifiable" to overlook it?)

However, every detail in this account has counterparts in the accounts of others dealing with this professor. We were told of other highly qualified students who were driven away, of another chair who sat idly by (indeed, reportedly suggesting that a student apologize to the professor for requesting to drop the class!?). Thus, the perception of students that this professor takes even the most routine matters personally led XX to leave rather than spend "5 years worrying that the most innocent move or comment can turn into a major battle." And so a highly qualified student with a passion for the field, was lost.

The above is the only case history we have been given permission to present explicitly. However, during the course of our interviews we were told of

• physical displays of faculty anger including frequent yelling and even slamming a chair on the floor

• students being intimidated into taking particular classes because of enrollment concerns

• students who fear writing anything but laudatory comments in the "anonymous" course evaluation forms

• a fractious faculty so immobilized by disagreement that no common reading list can be agreed upon (at least for linguistics) to assist the students in preparation for their exams

• students who feel compelled to tailor their intellectual approach in exams to the committee membership, and who are advised to "get one on your side" before going into exams

• students who don't dare complain for fear of retaliation in the MA or PhD exams, or in obtaining a dissertation signature

• students who feel that the only value of their comments is for use as ammunition in the internal squabbles of the faculty

• repeated episodes of students being ridiculed for having various deficiencies in their background; e.g. "What the hell are you doing here?" or "Well, you might as well just be an undergraduate!"

• students feeling abandoned and with no place to turn

• faculty who appear to change their minds about the quality of work in response to unrelated circumstances

• ladder faculty conspiring against non-ladder faculty in the presence of students

• faculty playing out their rivalries by deprecating students' choices of dissertation advisor

• students being threatened with loss of funding in arguments with faculty, e.g. " ... and don't think you are going to get funding next year..."

• students being threatened with disciplinary action for voicing disagreement with faculty

We would take pains to emphasize that the above list is accurate, but very general and not comprehensive.

Funding. A persistent complaint among students for years has been the chronic shortage of funding and the apparently capricious manner in which it is distributed. Students complain about lack of transparency in the criteria and processes governing the awarding of graduate student support. Certain jealousies and rivalries among the faculty are said to be so conspicuously displayed as to be common knowledge among the students. So vengeful are the faculty, we were told, that many students sincerely believe they are merely pawns among these colliding ambitions and that the awarding of support often is little more than manipulation resulting from jealousy or retribution.

The issue is not the nature of the details giving rise to this perception, but rather the perception itself of a systemic disrespect of graduate students, and their apparent treatment as chattel in the department. The chronic shortage of funds, almost universally identified by the faculty as the principal source of student dissatisfaction, is secondary to the spiritual blight in the department in the eyes of the students. Nevertheless, the inability to find adequate student support is also unacceptable and must be remedied (at least in the short term) by reducing the number of acceptances into the program.

Attrition. Based on the above one would expect the level of attrition in the Slavic department to be quite high. While attrition cannot reliably be determined from statistics alone, a rough estimate based on the total number of degrees awarded (MA+PhD) compared to the number of admittances between Fall of '88 and Spring of '98 suggests that Slavic has the highest record of attrition of any comparable department in the Humanities (comparison among 10 departments). But the reported mistreatment of students appears not to be the only reason for attrition in the Slavic department. A cursory survey of case histories for students who have left the program in recent years suggests that several were underqualified from the start. In addition, many of the others have had backgrounds considered grossly inadequate by some of the faculty ("What the hell are you doing here?"). In particular, students frequently reported being castigated for insufficiency in Russian. The impression is that the department over-admits and then relies on attrition to select for the students that will eventually get their degrees. Under normal circumstances this would be a healthy selection-capable, well prepared students would be admitted and the motivated ones would persevere and succeed.

It is not clear to us what the internal reviewers mean by this. Our complaint has always been that the department issues a blanket statement to the effect that if students "do well", then they will be funded. Never is the term "do well" defined, for the to us all too obvious reason that the department can never fund all of its graduate students. What if all the graduate students did equally well? Would they all get funded? Of course not. The department has always known this yet it often keeps this information from potential graduate students. The department has no ethical or moral obligation to fund every graduate student. The department does have, however, a moral and ethical obligation to be truthful to all its current and potential graduate students about the state of funding in this department.

What is potentially troubling about the statement of the internal reviewers above, i.e. "Under normal circumstances this would be a healthy selection-capable, well prepared students would be admitted and the motivated ones would persevere and succeed," is how one interprets the term "motivated". What if all students were equally motivated? Would all then be provided funding? Or is could this criteria be used in exactly the same way the department has used the terms "good" and "satisfactory" in the past, with funding only available for those who fall under the "good" rubric according to criteria known only to the faculty? In other words, if all the students of a given class proved to be outstanding, would they all then be provided funding? Or is this just another construct (with "motivated vs. non-motivated" replacing "good vs. merely satisfactory") through which the department could continue its policy of Social Darwinism?

However, in this department the reports we heard paint a picture of a process that results not in cultivation of the best and the brightest, but in the survival of the toughest and the most resilient-with the rest simply being discarded as damaged goods.

Attrition is a terrible waste. Resources, desperately needed by other students, are squandered on students who do not return. Precious time in the young lives of these students is needlessly lost; they either should not be admitted or, once admitted, they should not be driven away. Talent, important to the field and to UCLA, is shunted aside or destroyed. It is imperative that the department reform its attitude towards graduate students. These are young human beings entrusting themselves to the department for intellectual nurture and professional training. The department should consider more carefully exactly what background and capabilities it expects its students to bring to the program and then should screen the applicants rigorously. But once the students are admitted to the program the department is obligated to work as conscientiously as possible to mentor each student to success.

Apparently some faculty have very strong opinions about the level of preparation required of students who enter the program. The admissions committee should enlist these faculty in the screening of the applicants. Where possible, interviews in person should be conducted. When this is impractical, telephone interviews should be substituted. But some kind of direct interaction appears to be necessary to avoid admitting students who are considered inadequate. However, once the students are admitted, no faculty member has the right to ridicule their level of preparation-the faculty are responsible for whom they admit.

Here we, quite obviously, strongly agree with the internal reviewers and we appreciate the forceful way in which these points are made.

Graduate requirements. A number of specific issues were discussed with the review team, leading to the following recommendations by the external reviewers (ER, p. 6). "Reasonable and coherent reading lists [must] be established". The "exam format [must] be regularized ... and the expectations for student performance be made explicit". "The graduate program [must] be simplified and the time to-PhD be reduced". The internal reviewers strongly support these recommendations and refer the reader to the report of the external reviewers for a complete discussion of the issues. However, because none of these issues-nor others the internal reviewers would ordinarily have raised-can be meaningfully addressed unless the problems above are resolved, we forgo further elaboration here.

Moreover, there is an additional problem that must be solved before these graduate program issues can be dealt with. The faculty must find some way to make collective decisions. Repeatedly we were told that particular issues had not been resolved because no consensus could be reached. In some cases this involved dissertation committees whose members, we were told, changed their minds or could not agree-leaving the student stranded! In other cases departmental issues were involved, such as the infamous (and functionally non-existent) reading lists. When we asked the chair what the vote of the department had been, we were told that there had been no vote! Further questioning left the review team, with the impression that the faculty avoids voting on issues that might go against the strongest personalities in the department. This tendency would be' consistent with reports of attempted intimidation following such votes in the past.

Even now, as this is being typed, months after the release of the report, it is still the case that the radical changes that need to be made are being thwarted by the same two linguistic faculty members mentioned in the report proper. We have heard of faculty shying away from changes which need to be made because "you-know-who would raise a fuss." This, then, is precisely what the 8-year review pointed out, the Slavic Department faculty avoiding issues and proposed changes which "might go against the strongest personalities in the department".

Some way must be found for the department to make collective decisions so that the students can have the security of knowing what is and what is not expected of them. In the current climate many students feel obliged to tailor their preparation to the perceived idiosyncratic preferences of specific members of the faculty.

Action

Although the problems reported to us centered primarily on just two members of the faculty, the greatest anger of the affected students was often reserved for the majority of the faculty who they say take no interest in, and no responsibility for, their plight. Again and again the review team heard of mistreated students who received only soothing words from the Chair and from other members of the faculty. In one instance the Chair actually did approach the faculty member involved to suggest outside mediation. When (predictably) the faculty member objected, the matter was dropped. Thus, a situation with its origins in a small minority has become the responsibility of the entire department because of the inaction and complacency of the faculty (with one exception). Therefore, with but this one exception, the entire faculty, collectively and individually, is culpable.

With one small exception, we agree fully with this assessment. We do feel that some of the native Russian faculty should not be held to the same degree of responsibility as the Americans on the faculty since their understanding of the academic system as a whole is not as comprehensive as one would expect from an American scholar whose academic training and teaching has, in the main, been done in the American system. In fact, certain of these native Russians have made significant attempts to rein in the two problem faculty members in linguistics and to circumvent difficulties associated with these two faculty members.

Accordingly: 1) To reduce the burden of students in the department and to preclude additional students from entering an unhealthy environment, the Graduate Council has voted to suspend admissions to the graduate program of the department of Slavic Languages and Literatures until such time as conditions for graduate students in the department improve.

2) To protect students already in the program from further abuse, and to prevent any possibility of retribution against those who may have cooperated with the review team during this review process, it is hereby recommended that the Administration place the department of Slavic Languages and Literatures in receivership until such time as external oversight is no longer deemed necessary to protect the legitimate rights of the students to:

• be treated with respect

• take courses that benefit their education rather than the need for enrollments

• be provided with reasonable and coherent reading lists

• be informed explicitly of the format and expectations for exams

• have their dissertations read in a timely fashion and to receive constructive and useful criticism

•and in other ways, not specified above, to be enabled, not impeded, in their education.

It goes without saying that the willingness of numerous students to speak with the review team (but not to be quoted) was critical in arriving at the decision to take the above actions. Let it, therefore, be clearly understood that the slightest indication of retaliation by faculty against students will be aggressively investigated by the Graduate Council to determine whether charges should be filed with the appropriate Senate Committee for violations of the Faculty Code of Conduct, not only for recent but also for any past offences.

These are certainly strong words. Unfortunately, it seems as though the Administration is incapable of providing the protection it promised to students who would volunteer to come forth and speak with the committee. Immediately after the release of the report the Chair of the Slavic Department, Michael Heim, announced that he wanted to speak individually with each and every one of the graduate students in the department. This was immediately brought to the attention of the Administration. Subsequent to this, one of the emeritus professors also began asking students what they knew about the 8-year review, and this same professor then openly confronted one student, accusing her of trying to bring down the department.

The Slavic Department graduate student representative several times made clear to the Chair of the Slavic Department that she thought this sort of interaction, one-on-one, between any professor in the Slavic Department, including the Chair, with graduate students concerning the 8-year review would be inappropriate, simply because it would put the student in a position of having either to openly state his/her opinions of the review to the Department Chair, or it would force him/her to lie in instances where he/she did agree with the report. Additionally, for every student that does speak with the Chair, this draws further suspicion to those who choose not to speak with him, especially in a small department such as Slavic. The Slavic Department graduate student representitive offered to act as a conduit to the Chair if he wanted to solicit feedback from the students, but the Chair continued to disregard her request (made several times) that he not seek to meet with students individually to discuss the report, even after other students voiced complaints.

Eventually, the Administration took action, instructing the Slavic Department faculty that only the Chair of the Department should be talking with students. While this was a good first step as far as it went, it was bad in that, far from instructing the Chair not to discuss the 8-year review with the students individually, it in fact appeared to give him a mandate to do so.

What follows is perhaps some of the clearest evidence that the UCLA Slavic Department faculty, far from being inclined to accept the report and to work with the Administration to fix what is clearly a broken program, is intent on holding on to its power and on attempting to defend its treatment of graduate students. Certain members of this faculty actually threatened legal action against the Administration and the University for abridging their First Amendment rights. This strikes us as outrageous. We are not lawyers, so we cannot comment on the validity of their claim. It seems that in other areas of employer-employee relations, an employer would be more than justified in asking his/her employees not to speak with customers about certain issues. Apparently, however, because of the "special status" of professors vis-a-vis the university for which they work, i.e. issues related to academic freedom and tenure, these restrictions cannot be placed on tenured professors.

We do not know for sure that this is true, i.e. that professors in this instance are privileged over and above non-academic workers in this regard. As we have said, we are not lawyers. What we do know is that the Administration, when challenged by these dissatisfied Slavic Department faculty members, quickly acquiesced and recognized the faculty's "right" to approach students and speak with them at will concerning the 8-year review. This implies one of two possible scenarios:

1. That the Administration conferred with its lawyers who told them that those Slavic Department faculty and their legal representation were in fact correct, and that the Administration has no power and no right to preclude conversations between faculty and students on certain issues. If this is the case, then the UCLA Administration should have known this beforehand, and should have made it clear to students that, if they were to honor the Administration's request to participate fully in the eight-year review process, then they would be doing so knowing that there is no way they could be protected from direct inquiries from the UCLA Slavic Department faculty. The fact that the effort was made by the Administration to preclude such conversations (excepting the Chair) shows good faith on the part of the Administration, but clearly this was an area in which the Administration was ill-prepared and as a result, led the Administration to offer what it could not provide, namely protection from the Slavic Department faculty.

2. The second possible scenario is that the Administration, when confronted with the threat of legal action from the Slavic Department faculty, chose simply to give in, not wanting to risk an intra-university legal battle which could open up a legal can of worms vis-a-vis the always sensitive issues of academic freedom and tenure. In other words, rather than taking the difficult road of engaging its own faculty in the legal arena, the Administration defaulted to the faculty's position and thus left Slavic Department graduate students open to this type of intrusive questioning. If this is the case, there is no other word for it than shameful.

Regardless of which of these two scenarios is true, it is clear that either the Administration or the Graduate Council or both is still either unable or unwilling to protect Slavic Department graduate students from unwanted conversation with Slavic Department faculty members regarding the 8-year review. When the Graduate Council was asked by graduate students to make the 8-year review available via e-mail (this in response to Michael Heim's sending out to graduate students via e-mail documentation which supported the position of the Slavic Department faculty), the Graduate Council was extremely reluctant to do so. This reluctance itself seems to indicate a bias toward faculty sensibilities. Whatever arguments might have been made against releasing the report via e-mail surely would lose their justification in light of the fact that the Slavic Department faculty itself was using e-mail to communicate its own side of the story (and only its side of the story) to graduate students. In spite of the fact that the Slavic Department itself was sending out reports which reached graduate students immediately, regardless of where these graduate students were (i.e., student out of the area or abroad would instantly get the department's side of the story via e-mail, but not the original report to which the department was responding), it appears as though the Graduate Council did finally buckle in to the Slavic Department itself and refused to send out the report via e-mail. A sort of "compromise" solution was reached whereby the Graduate Council agreed to send out paper copies of the report to individual graduate students.

Even more disturbing than the double standard seen here (e-mail for statements and arguments favorable to the faculty, snail-mail for the report itself), was the letter which accompanied the report, in which Slavic Department graduate students, many of whom had already expressed clearly their desire not to discuss the 8-year review with Slavic Department faculty (including the Chair, Michael Heim), were actually encouraged to participate in what the letter termed the department's "self-review process". In spite of student objections to communicating directly with Michael Heim and other Slavic Department faculty members about the 8-year review, the University has not only failed to prohibit Michael Heim from communicating with graduate students concerning the 8-year review, it has in fact given him a mandate to do so.

UCLA's handing of this matter in promising what it could not (or would not) provide in terms of protection from retaliation will cast a long shadow not only over future 8-year reviews but on the reputation of the University as a whole.

Recommendations

It is the goal of the councils to use the review process to strengthen departments. Therefore, we urge the Administration to refrain from imposing punitive measures (such as withdrawing the 19 century FTE). This would diminish the department's stature and would harm even the graduate students we seek to protect.

We sincerely appreciate the internal review committee's desire to protect graduate students. We do not, however, necessarily see a contradiction between such protection and punitive measures being taken, not against the department per se, but against those faculty members who have abused graduate students and those who stood by and allowed it to happen.

Problematic in this regard, however, is that, as things stand now, the censure procedure as it exists requires students to come forth, give up their shield of anonymity, and testify on record as to the wrong-doing of the professor in question. In a field such as ours, going public with complaints about one's own institution is tantamount to making oneself persona non grata in the Slavic world. That is not especially fair, but it is true nonetheless. UCLA should have in place an investigative and censure procedure which would not rely on the direct testimony of graduate students.

Another problem with academic censure, as we understand it, is that, astoundingly, this is supposed to be a "confidential" process, the result of which is to be known only to the Administration and the faculty member involved. While we doubt that any graduate student would want to even avail him- or herself of the opportunity to try the censure option, simply because of the need to lift the shield of confidentiality, the absurdity of this "confidentiality" requirement begs the question as to what value the entire procedure could possibly be? If a student were willing to give up confidentiality to participate in a censure procedure, the hope would be that, by censuring a faculty member, that faculty member's standing and prestige in the field would be negatively affected, as would, consequently, his or her power to harm graduate students, either by outright negative commentary or by instances of "damning with faint praise" directed towards colleagues in the field who might be considering hiring the graduate student in question. But if the entire process itself is "secret", then there would be no sense of disapprobation visited upon the faculty member by others in the field, again leaving open the question, why would a graduate student even bother? As long as graduate students are giving up their confidentiality anyway, they might as well file suit in court, where at least they stand a reasonable chance of collecting damages, and in addition, they can at the same time focus the spotlight on the misdeeds of the offending faculty member.

Instead, we offer the recommendations below in the hope that they will be supported by the administration so that the department may emerge stronger and more respected than before. The department, for its part, can minimize the inevitable stain on its reputation resulting from the measures outlined above, by working quickly to address and redress the problems described in this review.

The one thing this department has not done since the release of the report is to work "quickly to address and redress the problems described in this review." On the contrary, this department has fought against these results tooth and nail from the very beginning, and continues to do so today. The Chair of the Slavic Department has not only refused requests from the graduate student representative that he refrain from engaging students in one-on-one conversations concerning the 8-year review, he has continued his campaign against a former graduate student in this department who had the courage not only to speak out, but to allow her story to be used publicly.

In the internal review team's response to Michael Heim's "Error of Fact" statement, it is made abundantly clear that Michael Heim will twist and shade the truth, and even completely deny the truth, in his efforts to undo the results of the 8-year review. To quote from this response from the internal reviewers: "The pattern that emerged was consistent denial or minimization of the problem-until confronted with overwhelming evidence.". This pattern of which the internal reviewers speak continues to the present day. One would think, after having been confronted so openly and undeniably with such a characterization of his actions, the Chair of the Slavic Department would mend his ways, but not so. In the above-mentioned e-mail he sent out to all graduate students, in spite of the fact that the Slavic Department's practice of always striking out at the weakest and most vulnerable of its members, namely graduate students, had been exposed in the 8-year review report, and in spite of the fact that the internal reviewers had effectively rebuffed his attempt to demonize the one student brave enough to allow her story to be told (the very first point addressed in the internal reviewers' response to the Chair's "Error of Fact" statement), the Chair of the Slavic Department unbelievably continues to attack this same student. In doing so, not only does he falsely characterize her abilities, but he actually releases details of her private transcript from UC Riverside, without her consent, to other students, thus putting him in violation of UC regulations, to say nothing of the Family Privacy Act of 1974.

Far from complying with the suggestions in the 8-year review, the Chair of the Slavic Department has done everything in his power to refute the facts stated in the review. He has stated his intention of not only arguing against receivership (which is the very least that the Slavic Department should receive), but also his intention to ask that the ban on incoming graduate students be lifted.

As for the rest of the faculty, clearly there are elements who will stop at nothing to thwart the University's attempts to reform the Slavic Department. They have already challenged the University's authority legally (and won?). Tenure grants them next to absolute security in their positions, and they are well aware of this. If they succeed in avoiding receivership, which is what the rumor mill is saying will happen, this will only strengthen their resolve, for they will know that not only have they consistently and grotesquely abused graduate students, but that even though this has been exposed publicly, they have still managed to hang on to power, which will make them even more arrogant (if that is possible) than before.

The University should be under no illusion that this department will ever voluntarily comply with the suggestions contained in the 8-year review. It will never voluntarily acknowledge that it was abusive to students. It will never consent to give up power or to reform itself, because to take steps to do so would in effect acknowledge the correctness of the report, namely that reform was needed and that abuses did occur.

To the department and the administration

1 . To maintain the stature of the department and to bolster undergraduate teaching, raise the current search for a 19th century specialist to open rank, preferably someone already highly respected in the field, and ideally someone who might take a leadership role as the department emerges from the present crisis. It is understood that recruiting such a person may be temporarily delayed by the measures outlined above, however the delay can be shortened by aggressive cooperation on the part of the department to correct the problems that have been noted above.

2. Seek a joint appointment to fill the 20th century position.

3. Seek a joint appointment to provide a permanent South Slavist.

As mentioned above, not all of us agree that a 19th century position is as important as a South Slavist. Some of us believe that a full-time South Slavist should be the next appointment approved, assuming the Slavic Department continues to be a viable academic department at UCLA.

To the department

4. Engage the linguistics faculty in the development of a more balanced undergraduate curriculum in which the linguists share in the undergraduate teaching.

Increase the selectivity of admissions to reduce graduate student attrition. The goal should be to generate a smaller (by half), better prepared student body, with more funding per student. Simultaneously, efforts to find additional sources of funding should continue. Any subsequent increase in admissions should be accompanied by commensurate increases in funding opportunities for the students.

6. The procedures for and the criteria upon which funding decisions are made must be clearly explained to the students in writing.

7. Lift the veil of secrecy characteristic of the department. For example, admit the MSO to faculty meetings as is done for all other departments in the Kinsey Humanities Group, and allow graduate students meaningful participation.

Time line

A follow-up review of the department will be conducted in the Spring of 2001 by a process to be decided before June 30, 2000.

It is now October of 2000, four months have passed since this process was to be determined, and no one among the students has heard anything of it.

Approved by the Graduate Council: June 9, 2000

Approved by the Undergraduate Council: June 9, 2000

Appendix I: External Reviewer Reports