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6 www.clas.wayne.edu/languages Fall 2011 Slavic Studies Opens the Door to Opportunity by Laura Kline and Alina Klin Only seven years ago, the WSU Slavic faculty created the Slavic major with concentrations in Polish and Russian and minors in Polish and Russian. Since that time the number of students choosing these degree programs has continued to grow, as have the number and variety of courses we offer. Among the new courses introduced this year is Topics in Slavic Studies (SLA 3800). Under this heading we have offered Literature, Art, and Song of the Gulag, Advanced Russian Reading (both will be taught again this fall), Russian and Polish Drama, and Pierogi and Beyond: Issues in Contemporary Polish Literature and Culture. The growth of our program is also due to the enthusiastic efforts of our dedicated part-time faculty: Anna Huk-Gleaser and Izabela Nychter in Polish, Olga Blum and Tatyana Sherman in Russian, and Natalia Mayorchak in Ukrainian. Olga Blum led our newly created Russian Culture Study Abroad Program to the cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg, and to the village of Borovsk. Natalia Mayorchak, who joined us last August, recently designed a new course, Ukrainian Conversation (UKR 2030), which will be offered for the first time in Winter 2012. We are very proud of the achievements of our students. Here are some of their recent accomplishments. Michael Chrusciel was awarded a Frank Filipek FPA scholarship, as well as an Undergraduate Research Grant to conduct research in Poland on the attitudes of Polish medical students toward cell and organ transplants. Maxim Ermakov received the Delta Sigma Pi Scholarship Key, which is presented to the graduating student with the highest cumulative grade-point average (4.0) in the School of Business Administration. He has accepted a position with Ford Motor Company as a financial analyst. Yuliya Harris was accepted into the Center for Academic Excellence for National Security Intelligence Studies at WSU. Nicholas Krol, who will spend the next year studying Polish in Krakow, is a recipient of an ACPC Scholarship for Summer Study in Poland, as well as an FPA Fine Arts scholarship. Katherine Nolde was accepted to the prestigious American Councils Summer in Russia study abroad program and will be studying at Herzen University in St. Petersburg. Michael Chrusciel, Mariola Koplejewska, Rebecca Magerovskiy, Raffi Nersessian, and Shugmi Shumunov all received WSU Slavic Scholarships. We are also very pleased that more and more of our students continue their studies in graduate and professional programs in the US and abroad. In the fall Jonathan Ciarkowski (‘09) will go to Krakow, Poland to pursue a master’s degree in Transatlantic Studies, while Kelly Kietur (cum laude ‘09) will go to Glasgow, United Kingdom to study Information and Library Management. Eric Szydlowski (’11) was admitted to the WSU School of Pharmacy. Alison Christy (cum laude ‘07) is completing a master’s in drama at the University of Houston and has been accepted by the Ph.D. program in Theatre Studies at the University of Kentucky on a Russian Theatre Fellowship. Lauren Gillis (‘09), who has been studying in the master’s program at the European University in St. Petersburg, will be attending the Transnational Security Studies program at George Washington University for Fall 2011. Richard Kruczynski (magna cum laude ‘04), currently pursuing a Master’s in Business Administration at WSU, was recently recognized for Academic Excellence by the Beta Gamma Sigma Honor Society. He also received a School of Business Administration Scholarship. Janusz Krupa (cum laude ‘09) was accepted to Ross University School of Medicine in NJ. The 2010–2011 academic year in the Slavic area was again full of exciting events that enriched the cultural life on the WSU campus and the Greater Detroit area. We organized lectures, film screenings, traditional Slavic celebrations, workshops, Continued on page 7 World Talk CMLLC Newsletter_Fall11.indd 6 8/26/11 4:07 PM
www.clas.wayne.edu/languages Slavic Studies Continued from page 6 and outings to concerts. The Slavic Club again did an outstanding job this year helping with the majority of the Slavic events and also putting together some events of their own, including fundraisers. By far the most exciting undertaking for Polish-language students was their involvement in creating the “Solidarity” Exhibit at the WSU Walter Ruther Library. Students and faculty translated the panels for the exhibit and attended the official opening ceremony, where they had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet Lech Walesa, the first leader of the Solidarity movement and former president of Poland. Accomplishments of our full-time faculty include Ken Brostrom’s editorial work on Guy Stern’s translation of Susanna Piontek’s Have We Possibly Met Before? and Other Stories (Culicidae Press, 2011). Alina Klin and Laura Kline each received FLTC Minigrants to develop courses this summer. Laura Kline is writing a new third-year Russian textbook; the grant will be used by Olga Blum to design online exercises for it. Alina Klin, in collaboration with Izabela Nychter, will be creating online materials for teaching Polish medical terminology. Laura Kline also received the President’s Excellence in Teaching Award. For a complete description of the Slavic area’s activities and achievements this past year, go to: http://www.clas. wayne.edu/slavic/. n World Talk Fall 2011 Adrina Garbooshian - Alumni Update Adrina Garbooshian received her PhD in Modern Languages at Wayne State University in 2006. In her words, she felt fortunate to have Professor Donald Spinelli (now Emeritus) as chair of her dissertation committee. The experience allowed her to write a dissertation that focused on her interest in French literature, American history, and the history of ideas. The professors she studied with helped her to perfect her skills in French language and literature, and provided opportunities to delve into historical research using a wide range of primary source material. It was this broad skill set that landed her a job as postdoctoral associate at the Papers of Benjamin Franklin, Yale University, in 2007. The following year she was promoted to Assistant Editor, a title which she currently holds. The Papers of Benjamin Franklin has published 39 volumes, and will publish the total corpus of Franklin’s extant papers. In her position, Dr. Garbooshian transcribes documents, proofreads letters, and writes annotation. She has also taken trips to the American Philosophical Society (Philadelphia) and to the Library of Congress, where she has viewed the original manuscripts to verify the accuracy of the Franklin typescripts. Garbooshian and staff are currently working on the period in which Franklin was serving as a diplomat in France; she was hired to help annotate much of the French correspondence. The emphasis that the program at Wayne State placed on grammar skills, she feels, greatly helped her to make sense out of some difficult letters written in phonetic French. She has worked on correspondence between Franklin and French scientists, physicians, and artists, including Félix Vicq d’Azyr (secretary of the Société royale de médecine in Paris) and the sculptor, Jean- Antoine Houdon. Furthermore, she has written headnotes summarizing letters by Europeans who desired to emigrate to the United States and who requested Franklin’s help in these endeavors. In the past year, she has gone on to annotate letters by British and American correspondents as well, including George Whatley, the treasurer of the London Foundling Hospital, Thomas Jefferson, and Mason Locke Weems, an Episcopal minister from Maryland. According to Garbooshian, the research she conducted for her dissertation, which treated both the French and American Enlightenments, allowed her to learn about new sources which she currently uses regularly, and thus prepared her for the extensive research she undertakes each day. Dr. Garbooshian spoke warmly of her WSU experience. “The success I have enjoyed in my present career is largely due to the dedicated and open-minded professors in the Department of Classical and Modern Languages. They opened up new horizons and supported my enthusiasm for learning.” n CMLLC Newsletter_Fall11.indd 7 8/26/11 4:07 PM 7
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