For the last five days I have been thinking about this letter. What words of mine may cut through the cacophony of opinions that are hurled forth without any beckoning? I can only hope that my plea for calm reason and the restoration of Maia Solovieva as a crucial member of the faculty at the University will prevail in such a time of emotional turbulence.
I myself was suffering from the calamity of a train wreck in my own life just five short years ago. Without unnecessary details, I am here today most certainly by the grace of God poured out to me by strangers that would become the closest of friends.
Having decided to attend the University over other fine institutions like Duke, Bucknell, and Haverford, based upon the generosity of Robert McNair and the sincere friendliness of Cynthia Lawson, it was the intimacy of the learning environment at the University that propelled me to places I never imagined I would see and levels of understanding of the world that seemed like the writings of a much more important person than myself.
My sophomore year, I studied in St. Petersburg, Russia having never heard a word of Russian spoken directly to me and knowing very few useful things about such a large place off the top of my head. If so many people were brave enough to come to these shores to learn new things and hope for a better life, I too could face the eight time zones and arctic nights in hopes of expanding my vision of the world.
It was in Moscow that I first learned true fear with no hope of resting on honesty nor truth at the point of the police's AK-47's. It was also in Moscow where I was crushed by what most simply describe as chance - why wasn't our theater the one that the terrorists sieged? It was in St. Petersburg that I felt the utter inability to comfort another at the loss of a son. It was in Sochi that I felt truly despised for the first time as the entire restaurant watched the bombs fall in Baghdad for the first time and I was the lone white face - let alone American. It was in Vuiborg that I felt the expanse of desolation under the Northern Lights principally with birch trees for companions. It was in St. Petersburg that I glimpsed earthly wealth and how little satisfaction that brings as at the turn of the 20th century the Yusopov's purchased an entire palace just so they could tear it down and put a staircase in their own "humble abode."
The snippets go on and on. A year in Russia was enough to seemingly propel me into a mid-life crisis at the ripe age of 20 (I sincerely hope it was but a quarter or perhaps fifth life crisis but only time will tell). Feeling lost in what had come to be my home, it was the passion and educational fervor of the Russian department at the University that helped me find an outlet for so much that had simply been stirred the previous year.
In particular, Maia Solovieva was a godsend for me those last two years as an undergrad. As a Resident Advisor, I daily tried to encourage other students, but I needed someone to do the same for me. Maia would constantly and gently push me to express myself in ways that I previously had not known. As she herself was a recent immigrant to the United States, she could relate to my experiences in Russia as perhaps no one else could. Under her teaching, my love for adventure and quiet confidence in my abilities grew to prepare me for the road ahead in the International MBA program and beyond.
It is impossible for me to say what quality of life I would have had with out Maia's and the Russian department's intervention. I know that times are hard across the world - even a small town in Brazil nightly watches the economic news from our country. Yet, in these tough times, we must not lose the things that make us so special. We must not cut into our muscle and bones as we try to cut out the fat. As a "Lean Certified" professional, I stand completely behind efficiency and waste reduction. However, I am fully committed to strategy, particularly for the University and state that I have come to love.
While the change from 100 to 900 may seem to be three times the shift from 15 to 45, there is no mathematical function to quantify the education that Maia and the Russian department, in conjunction with the Honors College, provided to classes of 5 to 15 students. That said, I would challenge you to look critically from a marketing stand point and see how much of a crown jewel we have in the Russian Department. The expertise, experience, and extensive knowledge that Maia and the rest of the department has is comparable to any institution in this country.
I cannot stand by in good conscience as my alma mater and my state build bridges from nowhere to nowhere through the swamp, purchase fancy electric scooters when a bicycle (or better yet two feet) would have sufficed, or pay for gas as people either want to sit in air conditioning or heat as opposed to being outside in the "elements," and we are ransacking the treasures of things that cannot wait until later.
If we do not immediately find a way to bring Maia back to the University, we will lose a great thing that we can never get back. We will also severely cripple the remnants of the Russian Department. Bridges, when necessary, can wait. New vehicles can wait. People can walk or ride their bikes (I do it every day to work).
We cannot wait in bringing back Maia Solovieva to the university family. Just as personally we must make careful and considered choices, so I ask you to do the same.
Sincerely yours,
Brooks Willet
BS Mathematics, Russian Summa cum laude, with honors from the South Carolina Honors College, 2005
International MBA Summa cum laude, 2007
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