SRAS for Educators About: The School of Russian and Asian Studies (SRAS) is an organization dedicated to encouraging  education in and about the countries of the former Soviet Union. As part of this effort, these pages are intended to help professors "market" their programs at home and increase program practicality by leading group travel in the FSU.
Professor Led Travel Making the Most of Faculty-Led Travel outlines the major issues involved in group travel to Russia and how to plan for them well in advance. Save yourself the logistical headaches and focus on the academic benefits of faculty-led travel! Sample Itineraries and Travel Ideas: 1. Siberia: culture and environment 2. Moscow-St. Pete: culture and history 3. Borovsk: art and meeting locals 4. Moscow: cultural tours 5. St. Petersburg: student politics Basic SRAS Travel Services details our basic package of travel services. SRAS Educator Accounts Login to your account or Create an account to use our testing center and receive our free newsletter!	Classroom Materials and Advocacy Advocate your program with statistics and resources that argue why Russia-related courses are important to today's students. Online Materials can make your courses more interactive! Program Practicality is very important in growing a program and justifying its existence to administrators. Expand Your Student Base by increasing cultural awareness in your community and by showing that Russian can be invaluable to students in other fields such as politics and business. Grants and Resources are available to fund and maintain your program. SRAS Resources lists lots more services for professors and students.

SRAS is pleased to announce the publication of "Russia: The Biggest Country You Never Knew," (pdf, 1.2 mb) a new booklet detailing why students should study Russian and how they can do it through SRAS. The booklet features twelve full-color pages with striking high-resolution photography (mostly contributed by our students!), surprising facts about Russia and the Russian language, and of course information about our innovative study abroad programs, internships, and funding opportunities.

We also have a new brochure about our faculty-led tours (PDF, 350kb). Lead your students to Russia while letting SRAS provide on-the-ground support in Russia, develop a unique, fun, and educational itinerary, and even help you market the idea to students!

Lastly, we have a new flyer to showcase our services and free resources (PDF, 165kb) as well as a new flyer to showcase our new and ambitious Central Asian Studies program (PDF, 165kb).

                             Networking Resources - The Key to Improvement!

SEELANGS *Recommended!* SEELANGS is a service which links hundreds of Slavic scholars across the globe into one community. Questions about research topics, class materials, and study abroad opportunities often receive educated answers within a day.

The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) seeks to strengthen and improve the teaching of foreign languages at all educational levels. They now run an online forum as well!

The Committee on College and Pre-College Russian (CCPCR) provides an incredible amount of useful information including statistics on college enrollment, resources for teachers, mailing lists for teachers, and even a census of language graduates and their current professions.  Highly Recommended! 

The American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL) exists to advance the study and promote the teaching of Slavic and East European languages, literatures, and cultures on all educational levels, elementary through graduate school.

The American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS) represents American scholarship in the field of Russia, Central Eurasian, Central and East European studies. Representatives of the AAASS sit on such bodies as the US State Department's Advisory Committee on the Soviet/East European Research and Training Act (1983), and the International Congress for Central and East European Studies (ICCEES). It is a constituent society of the American Council of Learned Societies.

International Association of Teachers of the Russian Language and Literature publishes journals, sponsors competitions and events, and supports research and teaching. Most of the site is only available in Russian.

The Central Eurasian Studies Society (CESS) is a private, non-political, non-profit, North America-based organization of scholars who are interested in the study of Central Eurasia, and its history, languages, cultures, and modern states and societies.

American Association of University Supervisors and Coordinators (AAUSC) seeks to promote, improve, and strengthen foreign language and second language instruction in the US.

The Canadian Association of Slavists (CAS), founded in 1954 at the University of Manitoba, is an interdisciplinary gathering of scholars and professionals whose interests focus on the social, economic and political life of the Slavic peoples, as well as their languages, diverse cultures and histories.

The Association of Departments of Foreign Language (ADFL) puts department chairs in touch with experienced peers and provides professional development to help departmental leaders work more effectively. It provides a forum for collegial exchange about important issues through its summer seminars, journal, and Web site. Members are kept informed about legislation that affects the field.

The National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages seeks to encourage communication between teachers of LCTLs (including Russian) and to increase America's capacity for teaching and learning them.

The Slavic Cognitive Linguistics Association seeks to promote Cognitive Linguistics, and particularly to encourage graduate students and junior faculty to pursue research on the Slavic languages in the framework of Cognitive Linguistics and to encourage interdisciplinary applications of Cognitive Linguistics, particularly in the area of literary analysis.

American Translators Association is an organization advancing the professions of translation and interpreting.  They provide lots of material and resources for advocating languages as professions. Their Slavic Language Division also runs a regular newsletter called SlavFile.

InterCom is a free weekly e-mail digest for language teachers that you customize so that you receive only the content that you are interested in. Russian teachers should select "Other European" when selecting their language preferences to receive Russian-specific articles.

The Center for Applied Linguistics uses the findings of linguistics and related sciences in identifying and addressing language-related problems and caries out teacher education, design and development of instructional materials among other things.  The site is not the easiest to navigate - perhaps the most useful section are their articles.  

The Computer Assisted Language Instruction Consortium (CALICO) is a professional organization that serves a membership involved in both education and technology. CALICO has an emphasis on modern language teaching and learning, but reaches out to all areas that employ the languages of the world to instruct and to learn. 

The Network of Business Language Educators (NOBLE) is a community which brings together professionals across disciplines to  collaborate and exchange ideas to build programs and curriculum that  will  prepare our students to be global leaders.

The Central Association of Russian Teachers of America (CARTA) officially includes the states of Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas, but it is open for professionals at all levels of public, private, secondary, and higher educational institutions from other states as well. 

Association for Women in Slavic Studies is a networking resource for people concerned with the problems, status, and achievements of women in the profession. It also attempts to cover research and teaching in women's studies and questions of gender and family life in Central/Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union.

The National Heritage Language Resource Center's mission is to develop effective pedagogical approaches to teaching heritage language learners, first by creating a research base and then by pursuing curriculum design, materials development, and teacher education.

American Friends of Russian Folklore mission is to support and promote American understanding of Russian traditional life and culture. To this end, AFRF supports a wide range of projects: field research, recordings, filmmaking, archiving, and analysis of Russian folklore and oral histories.

The Washington Association for Language Teaching (WAFLT) seeks to meet the needs of a profession dedicated to the teaching of world language skills and cultural awareness by providing information and sensitive global perspectives in an era of ever-increasing internationalization.

EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology.

StreamingCulture.org can help build up your organization's website with multimedia. 

The North American Association for Belarusian Studies (NAABS) is a non-profit scholarly organization which seeks to promote research, study, and teaching in all aspects of Belarusian studies.

The American Research Institute of the South Caucasus (ARISC) seeks to encourage and support scholarly study of the South Caucasus states (Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia) in all fields from the earliest times to the present. ARISC aims to provide an ongoing American scholarly presence in each country in order to facilitate research and establish and nurture ties between institutions and individuals.

Note:  Below is a list of those pages directly associated with this page.  The date indicates the last time that page was updated. 

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