We are creating this petition to express our disappointment that Professor Matthew Walker has been denied a tenure position in the Russian Department at Middlebury College. We believe this was a mistake, and we are soliciting signatures with the hope that we can make the Middlebury administration reconsider this decision.

We first met Professor Walker in Spring 2023 through “The Russian Mind,” a required survey course for Russian majors taught in English. His passion for the course material was immediately obvious, as was his desire to make us passionate, too. He gave life to dense, three-hour-long Russian movies that gave us renewed motivation to study the language.

Also in this semester, Professor Walker took a trip to Astana, Kazakhstan to evaluate Middlebury’s new school abroad at Nazarbayev University. Knowing that we were preparing to study abroad there the next academic year, he took the time to answer all of our questions and put us in contact with colleagues at the university. When one of us approached him with the desire to conduct archival research while abroad, he talked her through the process of writing the grant proposal that allowed her to stay in the country for an extra month for this purpose.

Following Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Professor Walker was committed to bringing more Ukrainian perspectives into our department. He immediately began studying the Ukrainian language, and soon worked with upperclassmen and Ukrainian international students to develop a senior independent study in Ukrainian.

It is clear that Professor Walker cares for his students. He has taken the time to write us dozens of recommendation letters for internships and graduate school and he is a consistent participant at Russian House events. As students who directly benefitted from Professor Walker’s support and dedication to his work, we believe that denying him tenure is a disservice to future generations of Middlebury students.

If you feel similarly, we ask that you take the time to sign this petition to show the Middlebury community’s support for Professor Walker. We are hopeful that together, we can influence the college’s administration to grant tenure to this extremely deserving individual.

Sincerely,

Sylvie Shure, Catherine Sorokin, and Maya Watson