Director's Notebook

It has been a very busy and productive summer and fall at REEI, which makes for a newsletter chock full of news on REEI’s programmatic activities and outreach efforts, and news and updates on the accomplishments of REEI affiliated faculty and students, visiting scholars, and more! We hope you will enjoy reading about the exciting initiatives REEI affiliates from across campus, the country, and the world have initiated and participated in during the last few months. In this issue you will find interviews with several REEI-affiliated visiting scholars and new REEI affiliated faculty member Andrea Stanislav (School of Art, Architecture + Design), as well as reports from several recent REEI-sponsored events, including the very successful First Annual Frank McCloskey Forum, held in October. Alumni, faculty, and student updates will catch you up on the latest accomplishments of our diverse affiliates from all walks of life.

In June we were busy putting the final touches on our application to the US Department of Education for Title VI and National Resource Center funding for the next four years. In August came the welcome news that REEI’s application was successful! This Department of Education funding, which REEI has received without interruption since 1958, will allow us to support students with Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) fellowships; to initiate a host of outreach activities on the Russian and East European Region to K-12 teachers and other constituencies; and to launch an exciting menu of programmatic activities to deepen knowledge about REE issues at IU, in Indiana, and around the world. Just a few of these new Title VI supported initiatives include the following:

A new lecture series, “The Americanists,” which will highlight the rich tradition of American Studies in Russia and the former Soviet Union;

The creation of a specialized Indiana Russia and Eastern Europe Network (IREEN) to facilitate teaching/research collaboration and curriculum development in REE studies at Indiana’s 14 public institutions of higher education, four of which are minority serving institutions;

A promising new collaboration with the Kentucky-based Bluegrass State Intelligence Community Center of Academic Excellence (BGS IC CAE), REEI and IU’s Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Center (IAUNRC) that will contribute expertise in Baltic Studies and cybersecurity to facilitate the entry of underrepresented groups into intelligence and security professions.

You can read more about these and many other Title VI activities in this edition of REEIfication. We look forward to receiving your news and updates for sharing with the REEI community in future newsletters. Please be in touch with us by emailing reei@indiana.edu or visiting our Facebook page!

Sincerely,

Sarah D. Phillips, Director

Russian and East European Institute

Director's Notebook