History & Mission
The Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies serves as the focal point at the University of California at Berkeley for students and faculty who conduct research and teaching on the geographic region of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Currently the Institute has 45 core UCB faculty members and over 150 affiliated graduate students.
The original Center for Slavic and East European Studies was founded at Berkeley in 1957. In 1988, the Slavic Center became part of International and Area Studies (IAS). The Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ISEEES) was established in August 2000 and is the administering unit of the Berkeley Program in Eurasian and East European Studies (BPS), the Caucasus and Central Asia Program (CCAsP), the Program in Armenian Studies, the Hertelendy Graduate Fellowship in Hungarian Studies, and the Peter N. Kujachich Endowment in Serbian and Montenegrin Studies.
ISEEES's mission is to support research, graduate training, and a broad array of scholarly and public programs—such as conferences, lectures, faculty and graduate student seminars, publications, and weekly bag lunch talks. ISEEES also provides funding for visiting teaching appointments of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian specialists, both US and foreign, and it hosts numerous visiting scholars and public figures from around the world. As a rule, these visitors participate in ISEEES programs and are available to faculty and graduate students for consultation.
ISEEES is the National Resource Center for Eastern Europe and Eurasia at Berkeley. Funding from the US Department of Education, under Title VI, allows ISEEES to support less commonly taught languages at Berkeley and to offer an active program of outreach.
The Berkeley Program in Eurasian and East European Studies (BPS) presides over a multidisciplinary graduate training and research program with seventeen affiliated faculty and over sixty graduate students (1999-2000). The Program helps its affiliated faculty and graduate students take advantage of the many new opportunities for innovative research on the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe by awarding fellowships, language training grants, and dissertation fellowships; sponsoring new courses on understudied topics; and hosting visiting scholars who offer alternative approaches to the study of the former Soviet Union. BPS organizes conferences, workshops, graduate student colloquia, and lectures by faculty and visiting speakers.
The Caucasus and Central Asia Program (CCAsP) was founded in 1994 with a grant from the Ford Foundation, and subsequent support has come from the National Security Education Program. The Program was renamed, and its mission expanded, in academic year 1999-2000. The Caucasus and Central Asia Program carries forward the campus-wide effort to promote research and teaching about these important regions, in cooperation with UC Berkeley's Center for Middle East Studies and the Institute of East Asian Studies.
The Armenian Studies Program was founded in 1994 by two endowments: the William Saroyan Endowment for a Visiting Professor in Armenian Studies and the Krouzian Study Center Endowment. ISEEES helps administer the program and sits on the Advisory Committee.
The Hertelendy Graduate Fellowship in Hungarian Studies was founded in 1996 and is administered by ISEEES. The Peter N. Kujachich Endowment in Serbian and Montenegrin Studies was founded in 1997. It supports visiting lecturers, fellowships, and grants with administrative assistance from ISEEES.
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