The Center for Slavic and East European Studies (CSEES) is proud to announce that it has been awarded National Resource Center and Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship grants by the U.S. Department of Education. These two grants, worth $1.842 million over four years, 2014-18, will support numerous activities both on- and off-campus.
At Ohio State, the National Resource Center grant will fund the instruction of intermediate and advance Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian, intermediate and advanced Polish, elementary and intermediate Romanian, advanced Russian and elementary and intermediate Uzbek; several area studies courses that will focus on human rights and the environment; the annual Midwest Slavic Conference; a variety of lectures, symposia and workshops and a comparative workshop on the state of Russian studies in China and the U.S.
CSEES has more than 40 years' experience as a federally-funded Comprehensive National Resource Center (NRC) since it first received funding in 1965. CSEES' specific mission is to support undergraduate and graduate training of specialists in Eastern Europe and Eurasia, and promote knowledge of the region in professional schools, among K-12 teachers and pupils and the general public.
For this grant cycle, the U.S. Department of Education has established priorities of training pre-service and in-service teachers to integrate more content about Eastern Europe and Eurasia into the classroom; working with colleges of education and enhancing relationships with community colleges and minority-serving institutions.
In response to these priorities, CSEES will organize an annual workshop for K-12 teachers in conjunction with the Midwest Slavic Conference, offer a week-long institute in partnership with Ohio State’s area studies centers and the College of Education and Human Ecology for in-service teachers and provide opportunities for professional development for K-12 Russian language teachers. To enhance its programming with community colleges and minority-serving institutions, CSEES will support lecture series at community colleges in Alaska, New Mexico and Ohio; work with Howard University in Washington D.C.; organize two workshops on the environment and international security for community college faculty and broaden access to knowledge about Russia and Eastern Europe at these institutions by supporting curriculum development that will create more courses with Russian and East European content. A more detailed description of CSEES’ new work with community colleges and minority-serving institutions can be found in the article Broadening Access to Russian and East European Content across the Nation.
The FLAS grants will provide funding for undergraduate, graduate and professional students studying Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian, Czech, Hungarian, Modern Greek, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Turkish and Uzbek. Summer fellowships will be available for intensive study at a domestic language program or study abroad and academic year fellowships will be used primarily for students who are undertaking a course of study at Ohio State that combines area studies and language study. A new priority for this grant cycle will be to award fellowships to students that demonstrate both academic merit and financial need. For more details on the 2015-16 FLAS competition, please see the article Funding Available for Students and Faculty.
The staff of the Slavic Center would like to take this opportunity to thank the faculty and students at Ohio State that have made this grant possible. Through your hard work and dedication to the field of East European and Eurasian studies, you have made Ohio State a truly excellent institution and supported the mission of CSEES as a National Resource Center.
Additionally, CSEES would like to thank Ohio State’s College of Arts and Sciences; Graduate School; Office of International Affairs and Provost’s Office for their support of the center, in particular during the Title VI application process.
