Four U of C students were among the winners of the seventh annual American Council of Teachers of Russian (ACTR) national Russian essay contest.
The students were given an hour to respond to the question “What is Your Dream?” The contest drew 650 responses from 52 universities.
Andrew Dombrowski and Berney Richert, fourth-year and second-year in the college, respectively, both came in first-place in the category for non-native speakers in fourth- or fifth-year Russian.
Second-year Liliya Ivanova took second in the category for native Russian speakers with no more than five years of schooling in the former U.S.S.R.
Jan Stiff, a fourth-year, drew an honorable mention in non-native speakers in third- or fourth-year Russian.
Steven Clancy, senior lecturer in Russian and Slavic Languages, encouraged the students’ participation in the contest and said that he is proud of the students’ performance.
“The results reflect the strength of our Russian program overall but also demonstrate the high level of Russian competency our students are achieving,” he said.
Clancy plans to follow this year’s success with having the entire Russian program participate in the contest in 2007.