FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact
John Randolph
Director, Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center
Associate Professor, Department of History
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
217-333-1244
jwr@illinois.edu
Joe Lenkart
Slavic Reference Service
International and Area Studies Library
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
217-333-1349
lenkart@illinois.edu
Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center and the Slavic Reference Service
at Illinois Receive Competitive U.S. Department of State Title VIII Grant
Champaign, Illinois (October 2, 2017)—The Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center (REEEC) and the Slavic Reference Service at Illinois have been awarded a $225,000 grant from the U.S. Department of State's Program for the Study of Eastern Europe and the Independent States of the Former Soviet Union (Title VIII Grant Program).
The grant provides support for REEEC's innovative Summer Research Laboratory, and will provide 55 short-term fellowships for researchers who wish to come to Urbana, consult with the Slavic Reference Service (SRS), and work in Illinois famous library collections. The Summer Research Laboratory also features training workshops, mini-conferences, and other scholarly programming.
The new grant will also support short term grants for researchers who wish to come to Urbana during the Fall and Spring semesters, in a new program called the Open Research Lab.
In awarding the grant, the Title VIII Advisory Committee praised REEEC's Summer Research Laboratory and the Slavic Reference Service as "a unique, cost-effective program."
We wish to extend a round of congratulations to our colleagues across campus whose collaborative work on this grant led to such a well-deserved success. David Cooper, the former Director of REEEC, worked tirelessly on this grant, as did Joe Lenkart and his coworkers at the Slavic Reference Service. We would also like to thank the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Illinois International Programs, and the University Library for their support. Because of these collective efforts, Illinois continues to serve the most basic mission of a public research university: to make advanced study in any field accessible to the largest possible pool of scholars.
About REEEC
The Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center (REEEC) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a U.S. Department of Education Title VI National Resource Center since 1959, is committed to combining the highest quality undergraduate and graduate training programs with national service to the profession, individual scholars, schools, and the public. In an era when international knowledge and engagement are a necessity, REEEC's primary mission is to promote the understanding of and informed engagement with Russia, Eastern Europe, and Eurasia. They do so by coordinating and promoting curricula, organizing diverse programming activities, supporting area research, and offering an interdisciplinary undergraduate major and minor as well as a master’s degree and graduate certificate program in Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies. The Center serves as a resource for faculty, undergraduate, and graduate students in diverse disciplines and works to promote deep interdisciplinary knowledge of the area, disciplinary rigor and innovation, and new perspectives in area and international studies. A strong commitment to providing outreach programs and curricular assistance to teachers from kindergarten through college, to the business and professional communities, and to the general public is also part of their tradition and mission.
For more about REEEC, visit http://reeec.illinois.edu/.
About SRS
The Slavic Reference Service handles bibliographic and reference questions in all subject areas connected to Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies. In addition to contacting the Slavic Reference Service directly, researchers can browse their collection of research guides which contain information on vernacular language print and electronic resources for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies. The reference staff also maintain a blog, which highlights recent online resources.
For more about SRS, visit https://www.library.illinois.edu/ias/spx/srs/.
