Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies
Description:
The Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies (CREES) at the University of Kansas (KU) has been a U.S. Department of Education (ED) Title VI Comprehensive National Resource Center since 1965. KU has offered Russian language since 1943; area certificate since 1959; and a Master of Arts (M.A.) degree since 1968. KU offers PhDs with regional concentration in all core disciplines. CREES graduates more U.S. Army Foreign Area Officers than any other National Resource Center (NRC) program.
Mission:
To meet the national need for specialists by producing students with superior language and area studies training, providing professional mentoring, enhancement, and study/research abroad opportunities; to support students and faculty in their research and intellectual enhancement so that they can be outstanding teachers, scholars, and mentors; to be a local, regional, and national resource, providing outreach, support services, and information to other KU units, K-12, post-secondary, business, media, government, military, and community constituencies.
Degree Programs, Languages, Disciplines, and Faculty:
Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) co-major; Master of Arts (M.A.) in Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Balkan, general East European, and general Eurasian tracks. PhD in all major disciplines, including Slavic Languages and Literatures with capacity to teach 10 area languages. Eight AY and 5-10 Summer Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowships awarded annually. Study abroad in Croatia, Poland, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine. 64 core and affiliated faculty members, including 14 language specialists, 20 humanists, 17 social scientists, eight in professional schools and five in the libraries; 8-12 visiting foreign scholars each year.
Library:
425,000 volumes of Slavica, 3,000 serials; three professional Slavic bibliographers (five professional library staff); the major Slavic collection between Illinois and California-Berkeley.
Enhancement and Outreach Activities:
1) Over 50 events annually including lectures, workshops, plays, films, roundtables, and conferences;
2) K-12 Teacher training and newsletters; curriculum development; and video resources for K-16;
3) Online Content (www.crees.ku.edu; www.ku.edu/~herron; www.silkroad.ku.edu);
4) Translation and support services for business, government, media, military, and local community;
5) Sponsor of The Russian Review, the leading interdisciplinary journal on Russia past and present;
6) Fellows Program for area specialists at Kansas Regents, Big 12, and Great Plains institutions;
7) Collaboration with Central Slavic Conference, Mid-America Consortium for International Education, Haskell Indian Nations University, Robert Dole Institute of Politics, Kansas State University, Foreign Military Studies Office and Command and General Staff College (Ft. Leavenworth), International Relations Council, and others.
New Initiatives for 2006-2009:
1) Language Training: Beginning/Intermediate Ukrainian, Beginning-Advanced Czech; Language Proficiency Initiative (development of innovative proficiency evaluation for Slavic languages).
2) Curriculum: Societies/Cultures in Russia, East Europe & Eurasia (with institutional partners in Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Ukraine, Russia, Serbia); Thematic Learning Community and course on Business in Eurasia (with KU CIBER); Eurasian Security course (with Ft. Leavenworth and Marshall European Center for Security Studies).
3) K-12 Teacher Training: Web-Based Credit Courses for K-12 Teacher Training; Collaborative K-12 curriculum workshops with the School of Education and area studies centers.
4) Outreach: Eurasian Security/Military Affairs Forum with the Foreign Military Studies Office, Kansas State and CEAS; Graduate Student Summer Training and Peer-reviewed Student Paper Series with Univ. Texas and Wisconsin; Balkan Semester (Spring 2007: concerts, conference, and presentations about the South Slavic region); Forum on Freedom and the International Press (Spring 2007); Conference on Security in Eurasia (Spring 2008); Revolution Semester (Spring 2009: conference, presentations, special courses, and art exhibit to commemorate revolutions in politics, society and the arts); After the Wall Fell: A Retrospective on the 20th Anniversary of the Collapse of Communism (Fall 2009).