The Kazakhstan Off-Campus Studies (OCS) program has been a study abroad opportunity for students in Carleton’s Russian Department. It served as an important part of the language learning process for years. For many students, it represents a fusion of academic experience and personal connections within a small departmental community where everyone is closely connected.
The program, however, was announced as cancelled via email in early April, signalling the end of a long-standing OCS program. By the time the official email arrived, several students said they had already begun preparing for the possibility that the program might not happen.
Kaylei Stahl-Winch ’28, who intended to minor in Russian, described entering the department almost accidentally. Before arriving at Carleton, she saw an email from the Russian department encouraging incoming students to consider the language. As Stahl-Winch began to take Russian at Carleton, she decided to pursue further studies. “I really enjoy the language, and I also just love the people in my classes. I’ve had great experiences with professors,” said Stahl-Winch.
For Stahl-Winch, the Kazakhstan program was supposed to become the next stage of that experience. “I was really hoping that I’d be able to get a little more fluent [in Russian] and even more surrounded in that environment, which would be more of a focus,” said Stahl-Winch.
When Stahl-Winch received the announcement, she “wasn’t shocked.” Prior to the cancellation, she had noticed potential obstacles. “I asked about it at the beginning of this term, and one of the professors, Victoria, who led the program, said that there were some concerns with it. So, I started kind of wondering if it was going to happen or not, since the application hadn’t been open, and they didn’t have meetings about it,” she said.
Stahl-Winch also noted that it brought a dramatic change to her plans. “It is making things a bit more complicated, like housing. I had a housing plan, so I was in a situation with some friends, and it’s working out really well. Then obviously this happened, you’re gonna have to change all of that. I’m not exactly sure how that’s gonna play out, which is making me nervous. There were also just a couple of classes in the Fall Term that I’ve been planning to take and that I am fairly excited for,” she said.
“It’s kind of unfortunate for this to happen, so late in the year, where you have less time to plan for other things,” said Drew Jones ’28, another student who pursues Russian studies. “It’s just unfortunate, you know, I’ve had to think about what other OCSs there are.”
Jones described a reaction similar to Stahl-Winch’s about the OCS’s cancellation. Although he had heard from faculty earlier that the program could be “in jeopardy,” he still viewed the final decision as disappointing.
Because the Russian department offers a limited number of courses each term, the OCS program allows students to complete requirements efficiently through coursework abroad.
“There used to be some major requirements, and I used to feel like knocking out some stuff for the major while you were there, like a good amount of credits. There aren’t always many classes at once, so that would have made that whole thing easier. That sort of makes it easier to major,” said Jones.
After the cancellation, some students contacted faculty in the Russian department and staff in the OCS office to find alternatives.
“I spoke with current sophomores who were planning to go next year. They were, of course, disappointed, but understood that there was not enough student interest to make the program viable,” said Laura Goering, chair of the Russian Department.
Outside of the Carleton Kazakhstan OCS program, there are other non-Carleton study abroad programs.
“There are several programs that students can choose from instead: SRAS (Study, Research and Custom Programs Abroad), American Councils and Middlebury. We are in communication with all the students who expressed interest in the Carleton Kazakhstan program and are finding alternatives for them,” said Helena Kaufman, the OCS coordinator of the Kazakhstan program.
Faculty members and program coordinators pointed to several reasons behind the cancellation.
“The program was cancelled by the Provost because there were not enough interested students to make it viable — an unfortunate outcome, but not that unusual,” said Goering. “We do not have the numbers to sustain our own program. I should add that, for decades, Carleton was the only small college with its own stand-alone Russian program.”
Kaufman noted the lack of interested students but also highlighted difficulties the department faced in finding a faculty director to lead the Kazakhstan program. “We cancelled it because we had problems finding a faculty director to lead it…By the time the application deadline approached this spring, we had a very small group of students who were interested in the program,” she said.
Some students described structural challenges surrounding the Kazakhstan program itself.
“When I went to Kazakhstan, it was clear that the program was struggling to a certain extent. This is why the program shifted from a purely Russian program, which is what I believe was the first time the program was run, to a joint Russian-History program. The incorporation of history students in the program was an attempt to keep the program viable. The incorporation of people with little to no Russian meant that a much greater amount of time was devoted to instruction in English, making the program less useful to Russian students looking to improve their skills,” said Russian major Charlie Rhodes ’27.
Even so, Rhodes still described immersion as central to language education. “OCS — and the immersion environment that OCS creates — is an integral part of the language learning process, not just for the Russian department, but for all the modern language programs here at Carleton,” said Rhodes.
Despite disappointment surrounding the cancellation, students did not describe the moment as the end of Russian language study at Carleton.
“I think there’s definitely going to be another program,” Stahl-Winchh said, expressing that another Carleton OCS immersion program could eventually emerge in the future.