Viktoria Skrupskelis Is in Lithuania on a Fulbright By Linda Grashoff
	Viktoria Skrupskelis PHOTOGRAPH BY JOHN SEYFRIED		OCTOBER 11, 1996--Viktoria Skrupskelis, professor of French, is in Lithuania this school year as a Fulbright scholar. She left Oberlin in August and will return the end of June. Skrupskelis is chairing the French department at Vytautas Magnus University, where she spent a semester in 1992 as chair of the foreign-languages department. Some of the administrators she works with now, including the rector, are people she met during her last stay. As chair Skrupskelis is helping to shape the department, combining American and European approaches with traditions that may have survived the breakup of the Soviet Union. This is the first year that the school will offer a French major, and Skrupskelis will oversee development of some 20 broadly based interdisciplinary upper-level courses in the study of French language, literature, linguistics, contemporary France, and the teaching of French. She evaluates incoming students to see what they need in the study of French language, literature, and culture, and she guides the department in its yearlong discussion of the structure of the major, course content, and teaching methodology. Over the year she will teach a survey of French literature and a course on Surrealism from an interdisciplinary and international perspective. She will also give a series of guest lectures on landscape poetry— Lithuanian, French and Francophone. The poetry lectures will explore ways of introducing cultural experiences into descriptive poetry. She worked on this topic during her last sabbatical leave, in 1990. Vytautas Magnus University sometimes has as many as 30 non-Lithuanian professors teaching in a year, Skrupskelis says. "Part of my job is to be a bridge between the Lithuanians and the American academics. I can see both perspectives." Skrupskelis was born in Lithuania and lived there until 1944. "Lithuanian students aren't as used to responding and participating in class," she says. This aspect is difficult for many visiting American professors to handle even though there is, she says, tremendous pride on both sides. Sometimes, she says, each side seems to be saying "Look at what I've got." Sensitivities have to be acknowledged, says Skrupskelis. "There is a tendency on the part of some Americans to try to sell America." If a Lithuanian student is not satisfied with a professor, she says, the student either will not say anything or will go to the top level of administration with the problem. Skrupskelis will suggest working out problems at lower levels first. "Lithuanians tend to want everything settled at once," she says. She hopes to convey the idea that "some things are ongoing discussions." Vytautas Magnus is not in session during January. That’s when Skrupskelis will be free to do her own research on the influence of French Symbolism in Lithuania. She will peruse periodicals from the turn of the century that are in Lithuanian libraries and not in U.S. libraries. She plans also to give some lectures at the Center for the Study of Lithuanian-American Culture, a division of Vytautas Magnus University. When she returns to Oberlin, Skrupskelis won’t stay long. She is scheduled to teach in the Oberlin in Strasbourg program during the next academic year. This article appeared originally in the October 11, 1996, issue of the Observer, Oberlin's former faculty and staff newspaper.
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