Pitt is offering college juniors, seniors, and graduate students of Russian descent as well as current or prospective middle and high school Russian language teachers the opportunity to enhance their language skills and cultural understanding at the 2005 Russian Heritage Speakers Seminar, to be held in Pittsburgh and in Moscow.

The seminar, the result of a grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad Program, will take place during the University’s annual Russian and East European Summer Language Institute (SLI), June 6-Aug. 13. Pitt’s Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures and Center for Russian and East European Studies within the University Center for International Studies sponsor the annual SLI.

To be eligible, students must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents of the United States who grew up in an informal Russian-language environment—usually, a Russian-speaking home—in the United States but did not become proficient in speaking Russian and never fully came to understand their cultural heritage. Teachers applying to the program need not be heritage speakers.

The seminar will provide advanced intensive Russian language and cultural instruction for five weeks in Pittsburgh, followed by five weeks in Moscow. Participants are eligible for full or partial tuition scholarships through SLI. All participants’ airfare and living expenses in Moscow will be covered by the Fulbright-Hays grant.

Individualized tutoring and mentoring will be used to address heritage speakers’ specific needs, such as improving their Russian reading and writing skills and their ability to communicate in formal and professional situations. Cultural excursions and research projects conducted in Moscow will further assist students in developing higher-level proficiency in their specific areas of interest.

For additional information, call 412-624-5906 or e-mail slavic@pitt.edu.