The U.S. Russia Foundation Grant
Through this grant, we have been able to offer a one-year, online, introductory college level Russian sequence for high school students in Kansas free of charge. We are currently at the end of our grant cycle, but hope to renew for the 25-26 year.
Through a $220,000 grant from the U.S. Russia Foundation (USRF), the KU Department of Slavic, German, and Eurasian Studies (SGES) provided opportunities and access to Russian Studies to Kansas High School students, primarily through the offering of free, online beginner Russian language courses (RUSS 150 and 152). After participating in this year long course, students will be ready to join the KU Russian sequence at RUSS 108: Elementary Russian II.
In our combined three years of this grant we have offered Russian courses to almost 250 high school students. Participants from the first three years of the grant included students from throughout Kansas, including Sedgwick, Johnson, Shawnee, Butler, Lane, Jackson, Johnson, and Wyandotte Counties among others. In this context, online study allowed students from all over the state, many of them in rural districts, to take a class together, on top of their high school curricula.
We look forward to reapplying for the grant in the future to serve more students with revitalized curriculum and new outreach plans.
The U.S. Russia Foundation is a US-based organization with no ties to the Russian government. USRF has been considered an undesirable organization by the Russia and was expelled from Russia a few years ago. The USRF has made a statement (and taken financial action) in response to the war in Ukraine, which can be viewed on their website.
