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The Russian Department of Grinnell College maintains an active relationship with its many alumni--Russian majors, as well as students who completed the interdisciplinary concentration in Russian and Eastern European Studies. In addition to regular correspondence and meetings with alumni during their frequent visits to campus, we also maintain the Grinnell Russian Alumni in Slavic Studies [GRASS] list, an electronic forum in which alumni from around the world keep in touch, post information, and find each other. (Click here for more information on and how to join the GRASS list.) Over the years, John Mohan has maintained a database of alumni, with information as to their current whereabouts, activities,and contact information. At present we have collected information on the years 1988-2000; click on the years to the left to find accounts about alumni from each graduating class. In the future, w e hope to provide alumni information that will embrace all of the students active in the Russian and REES areas: ;majors and non-majors alike. This ongoing list, together with biographical sketches, will reach much further into the past than 1988. It will allow us to update and add to our information about alumni active in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe; we acknowledge that this current document reveals gaps in our tracking of such alumni, and we appeal to alumni and friends visiting this site to send us any revisions, comments, or suggestions. A complete record, like this partial one, is a very useful tool to current students in shaping their post-graduate goals. A useful supplement to these stories of our Russian-related alumni over the past decade is our Grinnellians in Russia and Eastern Europe: 1975-2000, a list which records our students' undergraduate participation in study programs in that region, as well as the students from Russia who have studied at Grinnell since 1988-89 in a program sponsored jointly by the College and the American Council of Teachers of Russian (ACTR). Not included in this narrative of Russian and REES alumni are the many individuals who graduated from Grinnell with other majors and concentrations, but whose postgraduate studies and work have focused on Russian and Eastern Europe. Many of these latter students may owe the post-Grinnell direction of their schooling and employment to some study of the Russian language in our Russian department; to the courses in Russian literature in translation which we offer to the larger campus public; to Russian- and Soviet-related courses in the Political Science Department taught by Professors Robert Grey and Wayne Moyer; to courses and seminars on Russian history offered by Professor Daniel Kaiser, as well as interdisciplinary courses which Professor Kaiser has taught with staff of the Russian Department; and to freshman tutorials offered by members of the Russian Department and by Professors Grey, Kaiser, and John Rommereim; Professor Rommereim of the Music Department, a specialist in Russian choral music, has also created interest in our target cultures through his courses and the repertoire of the Grinnell College and Community Chorus. The frequent mention of the Russian Study Awards given at graduation each year requires an annotation. These awards are drawn from funds raised by three devoted graduates--DIANE FISHER PERKINSON '82, SHARON McKEE'82, and EMILY SILLIMAN '81. The purpose of the awards is to permit students to study or do internships in Russophone countries after graduation, when financial-aid from the college is no longer available. This site last updated on September 7, 2000 |
