The annual Slavic Spring Tea was an opportunity to relax with colleagues, eat good food, and enjoy some beautiful weather. A big "Thanks!" to the Slavic Center staff for organizing the event, and to both the Slavic Center and the Slavic Department for sponsoring it.

It was also a chance to celebrate the completion of another successful year, and especially the accomplishments of our students. The following undergraduate and graduate students were recognized by the Slavic Department for their outstanding work:

The Pushkin Award for all-round excellence in the field of Slavic literature and cultural studies by an undergraduate went to Justin Bliss and Peter Marzalik.

The Francis M. Buzek Award recognizes a junior majoring in Russian or Slavic Studies. The award was initiated by Associate Professor Emeritus George Kalbouss in memory of one of his favorite students during his tenure in the Slavic Department at Ohio State. The student who receives this award energizes her/his instructors' teaching, and helps coalesce the class in such a way that the students teach each other. This year's Buzek prize was awarded to Eric D'Angelo.

The Dr. Miriam G. Schwartz Award provides merit-based scholarship support to outstanding undergraduate students who are majoring in Russian or Slavic Studies. This year's awardees were Justin Bliss, Eric D'Angelo, Zenon Evans, and Peter Marzalik.

The Melanie and Philippe Radley Award provides merit-based scholarship support to outstanding undergraduate students who are majoring in Russian. The 2013 Radley award went to Eric Connelly.

The Polish Support Fund Award is designed to enhance the Polish studies program at Ohio State by supporting relevant extracurricular activities and/or research. Undergraduate Tyler (Łukasz) Tomaszewski was the recipient of this year's Polish Support Fund Award.

The Kenneth E. Naylor Award is designed to enhance the study of South Slavic and/or Balkan language and culture. This year, the Naylor Award recognized undergraduate Edward Zitnik for his honors thesis work "Ethnicity and Gender: Implications of Prosecuting Wartime Rape in the Former Yugoslavia."

The Uprka-Lago-Schweitzer Award went to Ph.D. student Nina Haviernikova to support her research on code-switching and dialectal variation in Slovakia.

The Talvi Award was given to Ph.D. student Sara Ceilidh Orr in recognition of her contributions to teaching and service in the Department.

Finally, the following students were inducted into Dobro Slovo, the National Slavic Honor Society: Anthony Adame, Caroline Chimchenko, Christina Green, and Brooke Mangiarelli.

Congratulations to all of the inductees and award winners, and well done!

Many of these awards are supported by departmental endowment funds. To learn more about the endowment funds and how to contribute, click here.