Polish Studies in American Higher Education

Alex S. Kurczaba

There are 4,096 colleges and universities in the U.S. These 4,096 colleges and universities are home to 14,367,520 students. In 1998-99 expenditures at public institutions totaled $119,524,500,000; expenditures at private institutions totaled $70,951,662,000. In sum, total expenditures on higher education in the 1998-99 school year amounted to $190,476,162,000. State funds, that is funding in all 50 states for higher education operating expenses in 1998-99 totaled $52,834,377,000 (1999 Almanac of The Chronicle of Higher Education).

Of the 14,367,520 students enrolled in 1998-99, more than 99 percent did not take a course dealing with Poland. In 1998-99, of the 4,096 colleges and universities in the United States, more than 99 percent did not offer a single course dealing with Poland. In view of the above, one can assume that no American university president goes to bed worrying about the state of Polish studies at his or her university. Likewise, no American college or university president wakes up in the morning thinking, "What can we do for Polish studies today?" American higher education is a phenomenal success story in which Polish studies have no part.

In those rare cases where Polish courses are actually offered, American students actually register and do so in respectable numbers.

To speak of "Polish Studies in American higher education" is wishful thinking. The activities of academic organizations like the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences in America and the Polish American Historical Association notwithstanding, that which passes for the wannabee field labeled "Polish Studies"--a conference here, a lecture there, an exhibit elsewhere--is icing on a cake that has not yet risen. In terms of what happens on a daily basis in classrooms on the 4,096 college campuses across the U.S. year in year out, Polish studies do not exist.

I make this claim based on the following. First, in the United States today there exists but one Department of Polish Studies. It is located at St. Mary's College in Orchard Lake, Michigan. The college has several hundred students. Recently, it has been taken over by Ave Maria University, a newly formed institution of higher learning in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Secondly, by my count, a total of, at most, five tenured faculty members are engaged exclusively in teaching courses in Polish language and literature. Third, the number of American colleges or universities offering, or purporting to offer, an undergraduate major in Polish is four: University of California-Berkeley, University of Wisconsin at Madison, University of Illinois at Chicago, and St. Mary's College at Orchard Lake, Michigan. Additionally, a recent search of the World Wide Web indicated that the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and the State University of New York at Buffalo offer undergraduate minors in Polish, while the University of Chicago seems to have initiated an undergraduate major called "West Slavic." According to recent reports, Northern Illinois University intends to introduce a Polish language course in the fall 2000 semester.

Polish studies at American universities are kept in a perpetual state of partial birth abortion.

Fourth, in the activities and programs of the Modern Language Association of America --the world's largest academic organization devoted to the humanities--Polish studies make not a ripple. Take, for example, the national convention of the Modern Language Association, a conclave that annually attracts some 10,000 participants. The 1999 MLA convention program featured over 800 panels (PMLA, 114:6, November 1999). With an average of three papers per panel, over 2,400 papers were presented. Russian belles lettres was represented by six panels featuring such topics as: "Black Leather and Venus in Furs: Russian Style;" "The Medusa Complex: Big Hair, Bad Hair, and Russian Women Authors of the Fin de Si�cle," and "Falling to Pieces: Body Parts and the New Soviet Man." Ten papers were devoted to Romanian literature and culture; four papers dealt with Hungarian culture; three papers discussed Dutch literature; one paper was devoted to Armenian literature, one to Bulgarian and one to Latvian. Not a single paper or presentation at the 115th annual MLA convention dealt with Polish language, literature, film, or culture. Tellingly, this enormous humanities convention whose silence on Polish topics was deafening took place in--Chicago.

Finally, consider the status of Polish as a foreign language: of the 14,367,520 students attending college in Fall 1998, a total of 725 studied Polish as a foreign language (1999 Report of the Modern Language Association of America, statistics for Fall 1998). This total is somewhat higher than enrollments in Norwegian (638 students) and somewhat lower than enrollments in three other languages taken together: Cherokee (175), Ojibwa (251) and Lakota/Dakota (334). In the gentle jargon of the academy, Polish is classified as a "less commonly taught language." Polish shares this distinction with such other languages as Blackfoot, Chichewa, Choctaw, Coptic, Crow, Hausa, Hittite, Kazakh, Mohawk, Mongolian, Navajo, Samoan, Shoshoni, Tibetan, Tonga, Uzbek, Yoruba, and Zulu. "Sachem," Henryk Sienkiewicz's splendid Indian story, resonates with unexpected relevance: though Poles have preserved their cultural identity, virtually no one in American higher education knows about it. As a language offered at American universities, Polish is much like an endangered species. The native language of the most recognizable human being of the global village, Pope John Paul II, is not yet lost but it could benefit from the attention of the Environmental Protection Agency.

The perfunctory status of Polish studies at American universities is puzzling for a number of reasons. The first is the compelling nature of the history of Poles and their culture. The second reason is the status of America's Polish community: the largest Slavic community in the United States. The final reason for puzzlement is that, in those rare cases where Polish courses are actually offered, American students actually register and do so in respectable numbers. In the language of business: there is a demonstrated need for college courses on Poland.

At one Chicago university the search for a professor of Polish is now in its 4th year. At another one, the search for a professor of Polish has now entered its 9th year.

In recent years a number of Chicago universities--Loyola, DePaul, and St. Xavier--offered summer classes in Polish culture. All classes were filled. In the 1999-2000 academic year at the University of Illinois at Chicago, over 460 students enrolled in courses on Polish language, literature, history, culture, and film. These rare positive developments throw into sharper relief the rule in American higher education: the virtual absence of Polish studies as an academic discipline.

This absence has many ramifications. In the introduction to Land of the Winged Horsemen: Art in Poland 1572-1764, a catalogue accompanying a rare exhibition of Polish art which toured the United States in 1999, Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann writes:

Heretofore Poland has been effectively ignored by most American museums, universities, and publications. Dismissal or ignorance of Polish history and culture have had a broad effect on political discussions in the United States, if one with results not so destructive as those stemming from attitudes held earlier in Germany. Dismissal or ignorance of Poland has even entered the realm of opinion of foreign policy experts, as could be heard recently in the voices of those policy makers and pundits who have been opposed to the admission into NATO of Poland and its neighbors in East Central Europe ("Definition and Self-Definition in Polish Culture and Art 1572-1764" in Land of the Winged Horsemen: Art in Poland 1572- 1764. Alexandria, Virginia: Art Services International, 1999, p. 16).

The invisibility of Poland as an object of serious study in American higher education is a matter more than academic. It seems that American Slavicists have discovered that the way to "develop" Polish studies is to keep it in a perpetual state of partial birth abortion. At one Chicago university which enjoys generous funding from the Polish American community the search for a professor of Polish is now in its 4th year. At another Chicago university which likewise benefits from generous funds provided by a Polish American foundation the search for a professor of Polish has now happily entered its 9th year. When, however, the need arises for a professor of Russian, Voila!--the hiring is done efficiently. The moral of this tale: The best way NOT to build Polish is--to keep building it for as long as possible.

Students petitioning for courses in Polish and Polish organizations engaging local university administrators in a dialogue (supported by money) could do wonders for the increase of academic positions in Polish at American universities.

What might be done to address this situation? In the academic world a field comes into being by way of organizational units called departments. If a Department of Norwegian can flourish in a nationally respected liberal arts college in Minnesota, then a Department of Polish Studies could certainly flourish at an institution such as the Catholic University of America, at Notre Dame, at Fordham, at one of the Big Ten universities, or at one of the major universities in the most Polish metropolis in North America: Chicago.

Establishment of Departments of Polish Studies is the long term goal, but the establishment of a Department of Polish Studies at a major American university would be a fitting gift from American Polonia to Pope John Paul II on the occasion of, say, his 85th birthday which is four years away. In the interim, efforts need to be made to establish permanent faculty positions and undergraduate minors in Polish studies at those colleges and universities which presently offer skeletal Polish programs. These modest goals can be attained by community organizations like the Polish American Congress engaging college administrations in dialogue and by students petitioning for courses and faculty positions in Polish. In the era of globalization and public accountability we can expect university officials and governing bodies to be as responsive to the issue of Polish studies as the Bureau of Indian Affairs has been to Native American causes.

This text is an expanded version of remarks delivered at the annual meeting of the Chicago Chapter of the Kosciuszko Foundation held at the Polish Museum of America, Chicago, May 20, 2000.

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