World View Spring Seminar
Understanding Russia and Its Neighbors
March 23-24, 2011
Co-Sponsored by the Center for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies

The Friday Center for Continuing Education
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

In our post-Cold War era of globalization, Russia has reemerged as an influential state actor in the global arena.  But how do you define post-Cold War Russia, and what is the United States’ role and relationship in the former Soviet-held region? Directly following the Latin America and North Carolina Seminar, the Understanding Russia and Its Neighbors Seminar on March 23-24 will examine social, economic, and political institutions in Russia as well as its influence in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Keynote presentations will include Russia in the 21st century, Russia’s demographic dilemma, youth in the region, and more. Concurrent sessions will feature topics in human rights, religion, as well as strategies for integrating Russian studies in the classroom.  A special thank you to UNC’s Center for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies for co-sponsoring the seminar.

1.5 CEUs or Professional Development Contact Hours offered for completion of the seminar.

- Featured Speakers -

Jeff Jones. Jeff Jones is associate professor in Russian/Soviet and world history at UNC Greensboro. He is a native North Carolinian (born in the mountains in Jefferson; grew up in Liberty; attended Eastern Randolph High in Ramseur) and did his undergraduate and graduate work at UNC at Chapel Hill. Jones has published widely and is author of Everyday Life and the ‘Reconstruction’ of Soviet Russia During and After the Great Patriotic War, 1943-1948 . He is currently working on a book on the Soviet-Afghan War.

Robert Kravchuk. Robert Kravchuk is professor and chair of the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at UNC Charlotte. His recent research focuses on U.S. domestic public finance and budgeting, and the political economy of reform in former Soviet republics, with a special emphasis on Ukraine. Kravchuk has been a member of numerous U.S. Treasury Department expert missions to former Soviet and Eastern European countries. He has lived in Ukraine, and travelled substantially throughout the Russian Federation. In 1993-94, he was the U.S. Treasury's Resident Budget Advisor to the Minister of Finance of Ukraine. Kravchuk holds a Ph.D. in political science from the Syracuse University and an M.B.A. in finance from Columbia University.

Jacqueline Olich. Jacqueline Olich is the Associate Director of the Center for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies at UNC at Chapel Hill. She teaches in the Curriculum in Russian and East European Studies, administers the Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowships, coordinates community and campus outreach activities, and serves as adjunct assistant professor in UNC’s Department of History. Olich researches, writes and teaches on the comparative history of childhood and children’s culture. She is the author of Competing Ideologies and Children's Literature in Russia, 1918-1935.  Having taught 10th grade social studies and grown up as the daughter of an elementary school teacher, Olich never passes up an opportunity to work with inspiring North Carolina educators and media and technology specialists. 

Oleh Wolowyna. Oleh Wolowyna is the founder and Director of the Center for Demographic and Socio-economic Research on Ukrainians in the United States, at the Shevchenko Scientific Society-America in New York. He recently completed a Fulbright research scholar grant in Ukraine, doing research on the demography of the Holodomor at the Institute for Demography and Social Studies of the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences. Wolowyna is also a Research Fellow at the Center for Slavic, Eurasian, and Eastern European Studies at UNC at Chapel Hill. He is also President of the Ukrainian Association of North Carolina. Wolowyna has a degree in mathematics, a master’s in sociology and statistics, and a Ph.D. in demography from Brown University.