Dear friends and colleagues, happy new year.

It’s hard to believe that we are in the second quarter of the 21^st century! The importance of area studies is greater than ever, and we have felt a lot of love from alumni and well-wishers in the past months as we struggle to fund the programs, students, and faculty who agree with us.

In the category of “no longer news,” the U.S. Department of Education Title VI grants that usually support our programs and operations were cancelled for this fiscal year. We scrambled, and we are running a slightly tighter ship while still fulfilling all our obligations. Again, huge gratitude to those who responded to our two Buckeye Funder campaigns in 2025 to support the Center and the Polish Studies Initiative. Our Center continues to add affiliate faculty and to work to keep East European and Eurasian Studies visible on campus and beyond.

In real news, we welcomed Prof. Ivan Kurilla, formerly of the European University of St. Petersburg, to Ohio State in August. Prof. Kurilla taught a course in Russian on the history of U.S.-Russia relations as well as a course on the uses and abuses of history in autumn semester, and in spring he will teach in both History and the International Studies program. We are happy to have him among us! Other new faculty include Prof. Saul Zaritt, who joins the university this month in as a tenure-track professor of Yiddish Studies. And the traditional Slavic Scholar Fulbright seat—to be renamed the Polish Studies Award in 2026—will be filled by a visitor from Kraków, Dr. Aleksandra Urzędowska, who will teach a cross listed course on new media in the International Studies and Polish programs.

At the Center we have enjoyed our talented summer and autumn international studies interns, Aurora Malave and Cody Allen—you can view the “Intern Articles” tag on our News page to see which interviews and articles they wrote up. We love having these bright young folk contributing to our efforts and helping the Center function smoothly. Aurora will be returning to intern at CSEEES in spring 2026, and she will be joined by Nina Rakowsky.  Emma and Alicia do a great job mentoring them and supporting their growth.

Visitors to campus in the autumn included Vuk Velebit, the founder of a Serbian-American project called the Pupin Initiative, as well as old friends Filip Ejdus and Marko Kovacevic, also from Belgrade. A panel of Estonian scholars, a geologist from Slovenia, and exiled Russian journalist Evgeny Kiselev also engaged students, staff and faculty with their scholarly insights. We hosted community- and spirit-raising events, including Polish and Hungarian folk dance workshops and a winter holiday craft workshop, in a valiant effort to focus on the positive despite world events. 

Our commitment to the K-14 realm continues, with two new online modules: A Journey Through Ukraine and the Electric Power Sector of Russia. Our modules are self-contained units of instruction that K-14 students, K-14 teachers, undergraduate students, or other instructors can use to educate themselves or to integrate into a unit that they are teaching. The Ukraine guided curriculum module highlights the rich diversity and unity of the country by exploring its languages, geographic and cultural regions, history, and cultural heritage while the unit on Russia’s electric power examines the industry’s strategic importance, evolution, energy sources, and emerging challenges. In addition to these resources, our outreach featured a wide range of in-person and virtual programming, including classroom presentations and collaborations with extracurricular programs. Highlights include sessions on Polish, Georgian, and Russian culture, on careers in East European and Eurasian Studies, on environmental history in the region, and more. These presentations reached students at Columbus International High School, the Columbus Council on World Affairs’ Global Scholars Diploma Program, and Emerson Elementary School. This semester, we will extend outreach programming to The Metro Schools, Kettering Fairmont High School, and Fisher College’s Global Business Living Learning Community, among others.

In Spring we have a lot to look forward to—including, we hope, an opportunity to apply for federal funding, now through the Department of State. We are also feeling that the theme for this year’s Midwest Slavic Conference, crisis and trauma, could not be more apt. Students and scholars from a variety of disciplines will delve into the lasting impact of trauma and the multifaceted and complex responses across Eastern Europe and Eurasia; examining how war, displacement, authoritarianism and cultural erasure have shaped collective memory, efforts to rebuild, and ongoing resilience among human populations. 

2025 was challenging, and our staff, students and faculty amaze me as always as they duck and parry. Their intellectual curiosity and warm support mean that our Center remains a welcoming place. We are excited to assess applications for the 2026 M.A. cohort this month and to shepherd our current flock as they pursue and complete their degrees in Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies. And don’t forget to sign up for the CSEEES the Day newsletter which recently moved to a new home on Constant Contact.

Don’t be strangers in 2026!

Angela