SEES (Slavic East European Studies)
What is Slavic and East European Studies?
The Slavic and East European Studies (SEES) area studies program encourages students to develop integrated, wide-ranging, and connected understanding of one of the world’s most dynamic, diverse and internationally critical regions. This valuable study is accomplished through faculty excellence in teaching, mentorship and scholarship, collaborating with students toward discovery and undergraduate research, and guiding students towards their professional and academic goals.
What are the regions of SEES area studies?
The region encompasses historically Slavic areas and geographical territories known as the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc during much of the 20th Century--nations that today stretch from Central Europe northeast through the Baltic republics, southeast to Georgia and Armenia, and eastward through Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, Central Asia and Siberia to the Pacific Ocean.
Why study Slavic and East European Studies at Baylor?
Baylor’s SEES faculty members prioritize undergraduate research and mentorship with their students. Mentorship begins when students enroll in a SEES course or declare their intention to study SEES. Even beginning students are invited into thoughtful discussions and fascinating research questions and projects that they pursue with faculty or independently with their mentors. Four SEES-affiliated faculty have been honored with Baylor University’s Elizabeth Vardaman Excellence in Mentoring Undergraduates Award.
Baylor University houses the Keston Archive for Religion, Politics, and Society which preserves the world’s most comprehensive collection of materials on religious persecution under communist and other totalitarian regimes: https://library.web.baylor.edu/kestoncenter Faculty incorporate artifacts--original documents, rare journals, and stunning propaganda posters--into their classrooms. Students use these primary sources in their own original research and may be chosen to receive a funded internship at Keston on campus. The Keston Center also hosts international scholars and funds several significant lecture series and forums annually.
Graduates of SEES study are very successful as knowledge of this region is unique and highly valued in today’s global world. Recent SEES students are finding career success in international business and organizations, the foreign service and other government positions, the military, education, economics, fine arts, graduate and professional studies such as law and medicine. Many SEES graduates also are granted Critical Language Scholarships (CLS) and Fulbright Awards to further their language and professional goals.
Both Russian and SEES are small programs in which the faculty know the students very well. As a result, they write very strong, personalized recommendation letters filled with examples that illustrate students’ suitability for law school, med school, and graduate school and make them competitive candidates for fellowships—both national fellowships such as Fulbright, Boren, Critical Language Scholarship, Pickering, but also graduate and law school funding. Russian and SEES have seen a lot of success with Fulbright applications. The combination of Russian language study + SEES Slavic and East European Studies has proven to be a winning combination for these fellowships.
For information contact Dr. Adrienne Harris or Dr. Steven Jug, Acting co-Directors of Slavic & East European Studies.