Hello academic advisors,

I’m writing to introduce myself as the director of our Russian language program and to let you know about language opportunities that may be of interest to students who are looking for future employment in the government sector. Right now, there are increasing job opportunities in government fields, especially related to cybersecurity and Russia-based threats. This also includes increased positions related to foreign affairs and contract linguist work related to the region.  Russian is deemed a Critical Language by the US government, which also brings increased opportunities for scholarships for study abroad and research.

Our courses are still a bit under-enrolled for fall and I think with the ongoing war in Ukraine, students may shy away from taking classes in the language. However, if you have students who are interested in taking a language, I think it is worth noting to them new opportunities that are opening up in the government and contract-employment sector.

I’m attaching in my email a list of Russian language opportunities for Fall 2022. We offer coursework both in Russian language and in Russian culture (taught in English and cross-listed as an upper division CSH).

As an example of one of our recent courses, we developed a news media course last Spring, “Russia in the Fake News,” that had students do open-source media analysis of the war’s coverage. This course was taught by an outside faculty member working in the data analytics industry. Several of our students were featured on the news:

• News4SA: https://news4sanantonio.com/news/local/utsa-students-analyzing-russian-media
• San Antonio Report: https://sanantonioreport.org/utsa-russia-program-truth-war-ukraine/
• Kens5: https://www.kens5.com/article/news/local/utsa-students-fight-russia-ukraine-war-misinformation/273-0ee32087-a626-4113-ac44-f76f11919763

Lastly, while students are not able to study abroad in Russia currently, we have opportunities available in Eastern Europe and Central Asia where Russian is spoken. Currently, 3 students this summer are studying Russian in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.

I’d be happy to discuss our Russian program further if you have any questions!

Best,

Andrew

Andrew Chapman, Ph.D.

Assistant Dean, Honors College

Director, Office of Nationally Competitive Awards

Director, Russian Language Program

The University of Texas at San Antonio

Honors College / Department of Modern Languages and Literatures

andrew.chapman2@utsa.edu