Polish Enrollments
The discussion group 'Teachers of Polish Language' was recently asked by a list member about the situation in Polish at their universities. Here is one answer:
Date: Sat, 2 Mar 1996
Subject: Polish Enrollments
To: Multiple recipients of list POLISH-T
At the University of Illinois at Chicago we have experienced an explosion of interest in undergraduate as well as graduate classes in Polish language, literature, and culture. We will be completing 1995-96 with total of about 350 students in Polish. We had 104 students enrolled in an introductory course "Introduction to Polish Culture" this fall.

One advertisement we have used here reads as follows: INTRODUCTION TO POLISH CULTURE
The elevation to the papacy of a cardinal from Cracow, the rise of Solidarnosz, the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 -- these historic events have drawn world attention to Poland. What are the origins of Solidarnosz, one of history's largest popular movements? What force has allowed Poles to weather cataclysms, preserve their identity, and to precipitate change? Answers to these questions may be found in an examination of Polish culture. "Introduction to Polish Culture" examines the distinctive features, recurrent patterns, and core values in Polish culture with an eye to illuminating Poland's transition from a totalitarian to a democratic model of governance. The course includes discussion of representative writers, composers, and filmmakers.
Alex Kurczaba, Dept. of Slavic & Baltic Languages & Literatures, The University of Illinois at Chicago

Opportunity to teach in Central Europe
Civic Education Project is an international not-for-profit organization devoted to the strengthening of democracy in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union through the revitalization of the social sciences in universities and institutes of higher education. Through its visiting professor program, CEP sends Western-trained scholars to teach and advise at universities in Albania, Belarus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia and Ukraine. Teaching assignments are initially for one year, during which lecturers teach university-level courses in economics, history, law, political science, public administration, and sociology, and also work on outreach and research. Lectures are conducted in English, and transportation, housing, insurance, teaching materials and a living stipend are provided to program participants. Faculty and advanced graduate students are encouraged to apply.

For more information on the Civic Education Project and its activities, please contact:
Civic Education Project
P.O. Box 205445 Yale Station
New Haven, CT 06520
Tel: (203) 781-0263. Fax: (203) 781-0265
Automated info: info@cep.nonprofit.net
Application: application@cep.nonprofit.net

Again, kudos to Peter Jennings On ABC Evening News on 4 January 1995, Peter Jennings gave a sympathetic presentation of a method developed by Polish engineers to destroy superfluous tanks and armaments. Jennings suggested that this low cost procedure should be used by Russian generals who complain that they do not have the money to engage in expensive destruction of armaments now stored east of the Urals. In 1989, the Russians signed an arms reduction treaty which stipulated the destruction, by November 1995, of the large caches of arms and tanks. Instead of destroying them, they withdrew them east of the Urals.

Why is it that of the three major evening newscasts, only Peter Jennings regularly reports on Polish developments? This is of course a rhetorical question. For the time being, we say three cheers for Peter Jennings and ABC Evening News.

President's Lecture Series, Rice University
Speaker: Dr. Andrzej Nowak
Title: The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism
Rice University
Polish Academy of Sciences
and Arcana: A Cultural and Political Monthly
Topic: Polish-Russian Relations
in Historical Perspective
Time: April 2, 1996, 8:00 PM
Place: RMC Grand Hall
Parking in North Lot (access from Rice Boulevard).

Michael Novak is George F. Jewett Scholar in Religion, Philosophy and Public Policy at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of, among others, The Guns of Lattimer, The Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics and The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism. He is Editor-in-Chief of Crisis, a Catholic monthly published in Washington, D.C. Novak is one of the few American intellectuals who have spoken up for the white American ethnics.