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NewsvineAfter a year-long closure, Stanford’s Overseas Studies Program is set to re-open its Moscow program during autumn quarter of the 2005-2006 school year. High overhead costs plagued the previous Moscow program, so OSP temporarily closed the site in order to evaluate, re-structure and develop cost management.
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The revamped program will have a new location, lower costs and a limited capacity.
Outreach and Student Relations Manager for OSP Shannon Marimon said that the temporary closure was primarily due to financial reasons.
“The way the Moscow program was structured was at a higher cost than what was economically feasible,” she said. “We were looking for a model that was more cost-effective and flexible that at the same time provided students with a better overall program than what was offered in previous years.”
According to OSP Director Amos Nur, the previous Moscow program had the same costs as a year-long enterprise rather than as a quarter-by-quarter system.
“The overhead costs became too much, so the need for restructuring the program became more and more imminent,” Nur said. “We had always planned on re-opening the program, so it was only a matter of time before that happened.”
Along with economic adjustments, several other changes have been implemented to the Moscow program, including an added language requirement and a limited capacity of 15 to 20 students for the first quarter.
All students interested in the Moscow program would be required to take at least one year of college-level Russian, but an exception will be made for the autumn quarter 2005 students.
Autumn-quarter students without language background will be required to enroll in a spring quarter Russian ‘survival skills’ course, followed by enrollment in a three-week Beginning Intensive Russian course offered in Moscow prior to the beginning of autumn quarter.
The limit for the number of students who can attend the Moscow program is smaller than for most other overseas programs. Nur said the number was chosen for the “experimental first quarter” to gauge student interest and that it can be adjusted in the future.
“There has been lots of variation of student interest in the Moscow program in the past, so we wanted to choose a benchmark number, and then based on demand raise the capacity levels,” Nur said. “Currently, the program is only being offered in autumn quarter of every year, but if demand warrants the change, we may add more quarters to the list of offerings for the Moscow program.”
The program will also get a new home at the Academy of the National Economy in Moscow. The location will provide students with more direct access to campus facilities such as libraries and athletic complexes.
“We wanted to increase interactions among Stanford and Russian students at the Academy and to perhaps forge better language partnerships between them,” Marimon said. “Hopefully, we will see this program become much more popular among students each year.”