Russian and East European Institute

Indiana University (IU) has been a leader in research, training, and service on Eastern Europe and the former republics of the USSR for 60 years. IU employs 85 academic year and 24 summer faculty specialists on the region in 16 academic departments and six professional schools. Our mission is to train future generations of scholars and professionals in advanced, interdisciplinary language, and area studies; support the activities of IU faculty and students who study the languages and peoples of our region; and furnish accurate and timely information to K-12 teachers, postsecondary faculty, government, media, business, and the general public.

During the academic year, IU offers language instruction in Russian, Czech, Polish, Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian, Romanian, Ukrainian, Hungarian, Estonian, Yiddish, Old Church Slavonic, Modern Greek, Finnish, Kazakh, Uzbek, Uyghur, and Turkish. Our 55-year-old Summer Workshop for Slavic, East European, and Central Asian Languages provides intensive instruction in the above languages, plus Latvian, Lithuanian, Slovene, Macedonian, Albanian, Georgian, Azeri, Turkmen, Tajik, and Mongolian. The Russian and East European Institute (REEI) administers Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) fellowships for all of the Slavic languages, plus Hungarian, Yiddish, Mongolian, Estonian, Romanian, and Georgian. Graduates of these language programs include many of today's leading area specialists in government, business, and academics.

A library collection of over 620,000 volumes and 1,450 serials, supplemented by a full range of the latest online systems to access materials related to our area of interest, serves scholars, students, and the general public.

REEI awards undergraduate and graduate minors and certificates. We offer a master's degree in area studies, and dual master's degrees with the IU Schools of Business, Library and Information Science, and Public Administration.

At the end of the FY 2006-2009 grant cycle, REEI will have expanded foreign language and interdisciplinary area instruction at all levels. We will permanently add tenure-track positions in Russian politics and Slavic bibliography plus a lecturer in advanced Russian and Ukrainian. Outreach and marketing of the summer intensive language program will be greatly increased on a permanent basis by continuing our student services position at full time. IU professional schools will continue to offer in-depth training focused on our region. Increased attention will be given to the study of Muslim communities in Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe in courses, outreach, and public forums. Additional funds will go to the library for purchase of Russian works on the Muslims of the region. Our outreach program will pay particular attention to pre-college Russian language teachers and programs that serve minority populations in northwest Indiana. In cooperation with our School of Education we will provide training for pre-service and in-service teachers. In cooperation with the Duke Slavic Language Resource Center, we will organize training workshops to increase the number of certified proficiency testers in the nation, sponsor pedagogical training for summer language instructors, and augment recruitment of students for language training at the high school and small college level. We will foster the development of interdisciplinary area studies courses in social science departments.