tl19890921-000 "Vol. 84 No. 3 ""Required Reading"" September 21, 1989 The Towerli U S iS es wee y sy t estus ents o owson tate Inwersity, owson THE by Dacia Dorries College Press Service and Kim Asch Assistant News Editor At Washington State Univer-sity, faculty members are pre-paring to squeeze 2,500 students into a class that only 250 nor-mally take. ""This class is popular because it's exciting, it's now,"" explained WSU staffer Kathy Johnson. The course isn't about music, human sexuality or even taught by a celebrity guest lecturer. Instead' it's a course students as recently as last school year would catagorize as a real snoozer: Contemporary Soviet Society. WSU is only one of scores of campuses where Russian Stud-ies, language and history courses have become amazingly popular. Primed by the changes wrought by Soviet leader Mik-hail Gorbachev's domestic lib-eralizations, foreign policy ini-tiatives and the political ferment now roiling Russian client states like Poland, Estonia and Lativa, students around the United States have been registering for classes in record numbers so far this fall. While Towson State Univer-sity students don't equally re-flect this new enthusiasm, Rus-sian language classes have ""maintained their popularity"" according to Modern Language Chairperson Jorge A. Giro. The University offers one sec-tion each of a beginning and an intermediate Russian language course. ""We have tried to expand the program to more advanced classes but we don't see we have the demand,"" said Giro. How-ever, if students want to pursue the language they can take the upper level courses at Goucher College. In addition to Russian lan-guage classes, there are two more classes offered in Russian studies at Towson State: History of Russian Civilization (History) and Government USSR/Eastern Europe (Political Science). Giro added that enrollment in other foreign language classes has increased. ""This year Japan-ese has been very popular,"" he said, which could be attributed to Japan's increasing involve- See STUDIES, page 5 1204 ArA46, by Kristin Gianotti Assistant Features Editor Hustle, hustle. ""Please change quickly,"" says Dr. Helen Breazeale, Towson State profes-sor of dance, to the Leningrad State Conservatory students who arrived Tuesday. They a preparing for their chara dance class, to be held in just five minutes, and this is how the first three days of their ten day stay has been. ""Frantic,"" says Breazeale. Trying to convey the message to the Soviets to bring all o their belongings with them at all times, arranging bus times for today's all-day Washington trip, getting everyone ready for class, and talking to the press keeps Breazeale busy. Also corn-ing are the Soviets' meeting with President Hoke Smith and the provost, Dr. Robert Caret, tours of the Towson State campus, and a packed calendar of other activities. Breazeale is loving every minute of it. Nikita Dolgushin, dean of the Leningrad State Conservatory can be seen walking around campus with a TSU pennant pinned to his chest. Sometimes the walking is more like pacing. ""I am worried because it's almost three days and they didn't practice,"" says Dolgushin. ""They didn't warm up ... one day in Moscow and two days here they didn't move Their muscles are very tight."" A hearty Russian ""Da"" (yes) is the response from the Soviets when asked if they hope this TSU/LSC exchange will be the *start of something even bigger. Students who want to conduct personal exchanges with the Soviets may meet them at Fri-day's Potpourri, 10 pm � 1 am in the University Union. ' The Soviet's arrived Tuesday afternoon and were in the dance studio Wednesday morning. photo by Mary Gardella AVE President Smith hosts Russians in the administration bldg. photo by Mike Leong "
