10/29/10, 6:19 pm

Who's interested in studying Russian in Russia for free? Because the Critical Language Scholarship is now accepting applications for 2011.

CLS is a program run through the U.S. Department of State for American students to study 'critical languages' [Arabic, Azerbaijani, Bengali, Chinese, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Persian, Punjabi, Russian, Turkish, and Urdu] in their respective countries for 7-10 weeks during the summer. Applicants get to live with a host family and take classes at a university to increase fluency. It's kind of like the MSU Volgograd program in that respect.

Pre-reqs for the 'Intermediate' Russian CLS is two years of Russian in college, and the 'Advanced' Russian CLS is three years. So, virtually everyone in 300 or 400-level classes this year is eligible.

You can check out the program info here, and the application can be filled out here. You better hurry though: the deadline is Monday, November 15th at 11:59 pm.



Any grads looking for a job? If you have some experience with non-profit organizations, Pacific Environment out of San Francisco is looking for a Russia Program Director. Responsibilities include:

• Overseeing and participating in development/implementation of environmental campaigns in Russia
• Fundraising for Pacific Environment's Russia Program
• Publicizing Russian environmental issues and campaigns throughout the U.S.
• Overseeing a team of four Russia Program staff
• Overseeing effective implementation of a $500,000/yr re-granting program
• Researching, monitoring, and analyzing environmental issues in Russia

Applicants should be fluent in Russian and English; experience with staff supervision, fundraising, campaign management, and budget management; able to travel extensively nationally and internationally; authorized to work in the U.S., and committed to environmental protection and social justice.

Those of you who are interested can submit a cover letter, résumé, writing sample, and contact info for three references by email to: Leah Zimmerman, Interim Executive Director, hr@pacificenvironment.org.

10/27/10, 5:51 pm

Hey everyone. There's two interesting info sessions being held this weekend for people interested in teaching and study abroad programs.


On Friday, October 29th @ 1 in 1345 Engineering Building the American Councils for International Education is holding an info session on Russian and Eurasian language programs. If you're interested  in studying Russian or Armenian, Azeri, Buryat, Chechen, Dari, Georgian, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Farsi, Dari, Romanian, Tatar, Tajik, Turkmen, Tuvan, Ukrainian, Uzbek, and/or Yakut, you should attend. The Russian programs site is here, and info on the other languages can be found here.

On Saturday, October 30th @ 9 am or 1:30 pm in the Kellogg Center the Asian Studies Center and Central Eurasian Studies Society is holding a teachers' workshop. This free conference is open to grad students and teachers. The goal is to help teachers introduce topics on inner Asia [Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Iran, Georgia, and Armenia] using geography, culture, history, politics, activities and games. One of the speakers will be Dr. Russell Zanca, Professor of Anthropology at Northeastern Illinois University, and expert on Central Asian culture and history.


If you have some time between boozing, watching the game, and trick-or-treating, we'd recommend that you try to attend.

10/14/10, 2:30 pm

ОЙ!

Would you like up to $30,000 to study Russian abroad? Are you thinking about working in the federal government after you're done with college? If so, Tuesday, October 19th is your lucky day.

The NSEP and Department of State are both holding lectures on that day about their respective opportunities to work, study, and live abroad. Everyone who's even remotely interested should plan on attending these; you never know, this might end up being the opportunity you've been looking for.

Details and flyers can be found on our website.

10/1/10, 11:19 am

Hey, everybody.

We had a great turnout at our party on the 24th. Nothing better than hanging out with a bunch of Russians on a Friday night, right? We hope you all had as good a time as we did.

ALSO, we're still deciding on a design for the club t–shirts for this year. If you're creative and feel like giving us the most BAMF shirts on campus, talk to one of our officers and we can work something out. For reference, here is last year's design, and here's the one from two years ago [on the left].

This coming week we'll be covering the передвижники, a famous group of Russian painters from the late 1800s [those of you who'll have Zarema will cover this at length]. If you're at all interested in the Russian art scene, anti–tsarist movements, or life in general in Russia at the end of the 19th century, you'll definitely want to come to this meeting.

Speaking of meetings, along with our coffee hours on Sunday, there are now additional speaking practices on Tuesdays @ 5pm in C211 Wells [just before our weekly meetings]. This is a great opportunity for those of you who can't make it on Sunday to practice your Russian outside of class.



HEY, PEOPLE WHO ARE INTERESTED IN GOING TO RUSSIA:
The Russian Language in Volgograd program is still accepting applications, and the trip leader [the extraordinary Dr. Jason Merrill] is more than willing to sit down and talk with anyone even remotely interested in going. If you are interested, you better act quickly because the deadline is fast a–comin'. If you can't get ahold of Dr. Merrill, you can seek out any of our illustrious club officers and talk to them, since four of the five have already gone. Act now: Russia awaits!