Spring 2009 Photo Contest Results

The results of the Outbound Department’s Spring 2009 Photo Contest are in! Join us in congratulating Melissa McDonald for her wonderful picture ice skaters Gorki Park. Melissa, a junior at Union College, is currently studying Russian in Moscow, Russia as part of the Russian Language and Area Studies Program (RLASP).

This Spring Russian Language and Area Studies Program students were invited to participate in the Third Annual Outbound Photo Contest. The Outbound department received more than 50 submissions ranging in subject from class excursions to Russian architecture to every day student life in Russia. It was a very difficult decision, but our panel of judges would like to extend its congratulations to the overall winner – Melissa McDonald for her exceptional photo of Gorki Park. Melissa described the photo, “I took the photo on a Saturday afternoon in February. I spent the day with other Moscow group members skating at Gorki Park, a park with lots of ice paths, outdoor rinks, food, games, and music for all skaters to enjoy. The photograph only captures a small portion of the impressively large ice-skating chain, lead by a park staff member blowing a whistle.” Melissa is a Political Science and Anthropology major at Union College in New York.

Allison Trautman, a senior at Loyola, won second place. Allison is a political science major with a minor in English and is currently studying in Moscow with Melissa. Kyle Pernelli, a junior at the United States Military Academy, won third place. Kyle is currently studying in Vladimir. To view the second and third place winning photographs, as well as the honorable mentions, please go to the Photo Gallery section at www.acrussiaabroad.org.

This spring American Councils has over 50 students studying Russian in three cities – Vladimir, St. Petersburg, and Moscow. The Russian Language and Area Studies program serves both graduate and undergraduate students, who attend approximately twenty hours per week of class in Russian grammar, phonetics, conversation, history, and cultural studies; all courses are taught by native Russian-speaking faculty. One day per week of the academic program is set aside for local cultural excursions. Local excursions usually include a trip to the Bolshoi Theater and Sergeyev Posad for Moscow students, trips to the Hermitage, Pavlovsk, and Yusupovsky Palace for St. Petersburg students; and trips to the Golden Gate Museum of History; Uspensky Cathedral, and Suzdal for students living in Vladimir. During the semester, resident directors arrange a seven-to-ten-day trip outside the host city. RLASP groups have recently traveled to Kazan, Nizhni Novgorod, Rostov-na-Donu, Sochi, Suzdal, and Yaroslavl.

Alumni of this program have gone on to graduate school and academia (some of them going on to become teachers of Russian themselves!) as well as illustrious careers in academia, business, government and nonprofit organizations in the U.S. and Russia.

For more information about the Russian Language and Area Studies program, please go to our website, www.acrussiaabroad.org.