Welcome to a new academic year!
Once again, a summer has passed, and we look back on the spring semester in our rear-view mirrors. Heading into academic year 2025-26, we want to share some events and updates. Subscribers to our weekly newsletter, CSEEES the Day, find out in real time about news and opportunities related to our Center, the university, and the field. Subscribe today—and read on!
Despite war in many regions of the globe, we continue our activities and are focused on supporting students, faculty and staff. This past year our Center awarded fellowships and grants to students and faculty, facilitated travel to the region and brought guests from all over the world to Ohio State, and served as a resource for the public as well as for scholars, students, and K-14 educators who want to know more about the Slavic, East European and Eurasian world. In what is my seventh year as director, I am happier than ever to be a part of Ohio State’s Office of International Affairs and to work with our excellent staff. We are problem solvers—which is good, since the world continues to throw us curve balls.
Spring semester brought news of tenure and promotions for our affiliate faculty and graduation robes and cakes to go with diplomas for our students. We enjoyed visits from Prof. Marko Babić, the 2025 Fulbright Slavic Scholar from Poland, as well as additional Polish friends and colleagues from the University of Warsaw: Jarosław Szczepański, our first ever Slavic Scholar, swung by campus for a visit, and Anna and Marcin Solarz gave talks in Prof. Babić’s class. The Slovene Research Initiative (SRI) featured a film screening and sent Shoshanah Inwood from the School of Environment and Natural Resources as a visiting scholar to Ljubljana. Additionally, our first-ever graduate student recipient, Siobhán Seigne spent two weeks in July/August conducting research for a film studies article. In Serbia the students were on strike all year, which interfered with efforts of the Serbian Educational Alliance (SEA), but we still hosted a colleague on campus who has become involved with the Mershon Center for International Security Studies and we expect more visitors for the National Security Simulation in October. Those visitors will share eyewitness experiences of the strikes with our community—look for an announcement of the event!
In early April our campus hosted the Midwest Slavic Conference for the twenty-second year. The theme, authenticity, brought 150 students and scholars together in Columbus, including guests from 8 countries. We have now made our student sponsor program permanent, and 27 students received free registration to attend and access the professional development and networking opportunities at the conference. Attendees were suitably chastened by Dr. Mikhail Epstein’s keynote address on the "New Russian Apocalypticism." The post-conference survey brought enthusiastic reviews, with respondents citing the quality of research, collegial atmosphere, networking opportunities, and variety of topics as some of the highlights.
We were excited that three Ohio State students took advantage of the Balkans program through Clemson University this summer. We hope to see applicants for spring and summer 2026 for the semester program in Belgrade as well as summer in the Balkans—the spring 2025 program went ahead even with no classes at Serbian universities, and spring 2026 will too! This year’s summer FLAS recipients used their fellowships to study Polish, Russian and Serbian in Kraków, Middlebury, and Belgrade. We awarded 15 academic year FLAS fellowships to 11 graduate students and 4 undergraduates—and as of this writing those fellowships will be funded through a combination of university funds, because our academic year FLAS and NRC funds have not been delivered by the federal government. With a dismantling of the Department of Education potentially on the horizon we remain concerned, but we have backstopped funding here at Ohio State to minimize damage and continue to advocate on a national level to fund these relatively inexpensive programs that are so vital to our national security. We have also run a very successful donor-focused Buckeye Funder campaign to reach 60 donors in 60 days. It may be that non-federal funding will become more and more important to sustain our activities.
Regardless of the national and international climate, this fall we will back hosting films and guest lectures as well as the K-14 Global Fellowship Program on “Exploring Global Tech Innovations.” We are excited to welcome new CSEEES M.A. students Elena Burger, Owen McNeely, Tomas Scott and Parker Tysinger. Please stay in touch with us this academic year and contact us with any questions or requests.
With all best wishes,
Angela Brintlinger