Welcome to the 2024-25 academic year! First, a big thank you to my colleague George Fowler for serving as department chair during the spring semester of 2024, as I was away on a research leave that I managed to combine with the first part of a two-part Fulbright Scholar Award in Croatia. A lot was going on at IU, so having George's experienced hand at the tiller was especially welcome. Thank you, Professor Fowler!

Among the many new developments were and are two generous gifts that are helping us to support students, faculty, and all those committed what we do. These are the Michael Henry Heim Endowed Chair and the Maria Carlson Graduate Student Enhancement Fund. We are humbled to be the recipients of such generous gifts, which strengthen our community all while honoring the legacy of remarkable scholars and wonderful individuals in our field.

We also received word in the spring that our application for a renewal of the federally funded Russian Flagship was successful. Ours is one of just four such programs in the U.S., testifying to IU's long-standing strengths and continued investment in the combination of foreign language study and area-focused research. Sincere congratulations are due to Flagship Director Maria Shardakova, Assistant Director Michael Krautkaemer, and the entire Slavic department community on this impressive achievement!

This year is already shaping up to be filled with milestones, featuring a Heim Colloquium organized by Heim Chair Bill Johnston, a series of presentations by department faculty and grad students on applied linguistics, an event honoring Emerita Professor Bronislava Volkova at the College Arts and Humanities Institute, and the appointment of two new postdocs, Nicoletta Rousseva in the position of Postdoctoral Fellow in Central and East European Culture, and Rebecca Cravens in the position of the Russian Flagship Postdoctoral Fellow.

The department has gone through a few changes over the decades, but our focus on the languages of this dynamic and often politically sensitive region has not changed. And so today our students learn Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian, Czech, Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian, and they learn to encounter the cultures of the region both on their own terms and in comparative context.

Our students also continue to combine majors and minors across the College of Arts and Sciences and beyond — in anthropology, history, international studies, media, music, political science, and more. The historical experiences of the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe frequently enable us to challenge our students to reflect on their own experiences as they develop real-world critical thinking skills and analytic clarity when faced with sometimes clashing ideologies and cultural norms. We send them into the world with thorough preparation in the languages and cultures of this immensely rich region, and our alumni include former ambassadors, government analysts, military officers, professional entertainers, translators, scholars, and teachers.

As always, we want to hear about the accomplishments of our alumni and supporters. Please stay in touch. If you’ll be in Bloomington over the coming year and would like to stop by for a visit, please drop us a line.