Russian Flagship Program

Why Flagship?

Faculty, staff, tutors 2019

The Russian Flagship program offers you a unique academic experience, and the Flagship faculty, staff and tutors (pictured above at the 2019 Awards Ceremony) look forward to working with you. The program complements many majors and programs like ROTC. Students of all backgrounds including veterans are welcome. Explore these profiles of our current students to see why they have chosen Flagship.

Be a part of our community

Flagship's academic advantages

Flagship offers conversation practice with native speakers to help students build fluency. Group activities are great for engaging with others and learning the culture.

Flagship offers small classes and accessible faculty, who are really committed to your academic success. Individual attention, coaching and advising help Flagship students to compete for scholarships.

Flagship offers extensive study abroad opportunities in the Russian-speaking world. Our students have had lived and studied in Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, Moldova, and other places.

Flagship offers internships in professional fields while studying abroad. PSU Flagshippers have worked at media companies, social service organizations, and many other places.

You can join the Flagship on the Introductory track if you are just starting to learn Russian, or on the Advanced track if you have previous classroom experience, study abroad, or speak the language at home.

Flagship pairs well with many majors, including Political Science, International Studies, Humanities, Climate science and others. The Flagship's language and cultural skills offer a career advantage to veterans and ROTC students. 

Previous Next

Why study Russia and Russian if you're majoring in...

POLITICAL SCIENCE

  • Russia holds vast energy reserves and other natural resources;
  • actively seeks to influence politics and economics in neighboring countries of Ukraine, Georgia, Estonia, as well as Europe, the Middle East and Asia;
  • actively seeks to influence social attitudes in Europe and the US;
  • will play a key role in dealing with the effects of climate change, including the future of the Arctic and global biodiversity; and
  • represents a different model of capitalist political and social organization and development.

INTERNATIONAL AND GLOBAL STUDIES

  • Russia occupies one-eighth of the globe's landmass making it the largest country in the world;
  • holds vast energy reserves and other natural resources and uses them for strategic influence on European countries, like Germany;
  • is taking advantage of climate change and increased transit through the Arctic Sea;
  • actively seeks to influence the political, economic and social systems of neighboring countries, especially Ukraine, Georgia, and Estonia;
  • is poised to play an important part in US foreign policy from NATO to North Korean; and
  • there are large Russian speaking populations in other countries, such as Kazakhstan and Israel.

HISTORY, HUMANITIES, AND ARTS

  • Russia's writers, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov, and Nabokov, have explored the human psyche, and have probed what it means to be human;
  • painters like Kandinsky, Malevich, and Chagall, were leaders in the modernist turn in the visual arts and revolutionized painting in the 20th century. 
  • Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, Stravinsky have left an enduring legacy in music, opera, and ballet.
  • film directors from around the world have been touched by the experimentation and visual language of Eisenstein, Vertov, Tarkovsky, Sokurov; and 
  • Russia played a key role in the 20th century’s history of revolution, defeating fascism, and exploring space.

Flagship and ROTC

The U.S. Department of Defense recognizes the importance of building a future officer corps that has deep understanding of a critical language and its culture.  Through the National Security Education Program (NSEP), the Department of Defense has launched a number of initiatives such as The Language Flagship to develop strategic linguistic and cultural skills of future U.S. military officers.  Thus, PSU's Russian Flagship offers a special opportunity to PSU students in the campus' Army Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) detachment, or in the Air Force ROTC detachment at the University of Portland.

ROTC students participating successfully in the Language Flagship often are granted a fifth year to complete their undergraduate studies so that they can complete the academic-year study abroad program.  Scholarship funding for ROTC students is also very generous. ROTC students in PSU's Russian Flagship Program can qualify for a Language Flagship Scholarship, which can cover a student's educational costs in the US.  Contracted ROTC students can receive complete scholarships to cover the expenses of studying abroad.  For instance, they can compete for a summer study abroad program through Project GO, or they can receive NSEP funding for other approved summer and academic year abroad programs.

Flagship ROTC students receive individualized student advising to ensure that they are meeting their requirements for their participation in ROTC and are on target in both their academic major and language studies.

PSU ROTC student commissions
Spencer Nieten commissioning after completing the Flagship Program

Frequently asked questions about ROTC and Flagship

Are ROTC and the Russian Flagship Program connected? 

The ROTC and Russian Flagship Program are two separate programs.  Students can apply to participate in one or the other or both.

Although they are separate, the Russian Flagship Program gets its funding from the US Department of Defense through the National Security Education Program (NSEP). The Department of Defense wants to encourage a future cohort of experts with a high degree of language and cultural knowledge for countries like Russia, which the Federal government has called "critical" for national security.  ROTC students participating in the Russian Flagship Program can go into careers in the armed services; other students often go into business, education, or government service as civilians.

What is the process of applying to be an Army ROTC Flagship student?

First, students apply for admissions to Portland State University.  Then, they apply to the Army ROTC program at PSU.  Lastly, they apply to the Russian Flagship Program.  While this process can take time and energy, the career opportunities and scholarship resources offered to contracted ROTC Flagship students are considerable.

back to top

Veterans and Russian Flagship

The PSU Russian Flagship counts among its students a large number of both Veterans and Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) students. Like the other Flagship students, they are learning Russian with an eye towards careers in which a Superior level of language proficiency is critical to U.S. competitiveness and security.

Military veterans play a big part in Portland State's history: the university started in 1946 as the Vanport Extension Center and its mission was to provide higher educational opportunities to returning World War II veterans. Today, with an estimated 700-1000 vets on campus, PSU has the highest number of veterans in the Oregon university system.

The military service that veterans have allows them to bring unique perspectives to the classroom and enrich discussions with other undergraduate students. With their discipline, veterans often model for other Flagship students a focus on academic work and learning. Their energy contributes greatly to the extra-curricular activities connected to learning Russian in this intensive program. Our veteran students, who are high-aptitude language learners, will achieve professional-level proficiency in Russian over the course of their rigorous Flagship studies.

In addition to VA Educational benefits, veterans in the PSU Flagship Program have successfully competed for Critical Language Scholarships and the prestigious David L. Boren Scholarship for study abroad. Read more about how veterans study abroad.

Considered an effective pipeline to federal service, many Flagship veterans pursue civilian careers in federal service upon earning their degrees and completing the Language Flagship Program. Veteran alumni have found positions with the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, and the Department of State, among others.

student at landmark in Kazakhstan
Miles Strang in Kazakhstan

Miles Strang (Class of 2019) served in the Air Force from 2009-2014, where he worked as an F15-E Avionics Technician. Strang spent most of his time troubleshooting and repairing various avionics systems while stationed at Nellis Air Force Base, NV and Royal Air Force Base Lakenheath, United Kingdom. From 2011-2012, Strang was deployed to Transit Center at Manas, Kyrgyzstan, where he worked as a Security Escort making sure the Kyrgyz workers around the base arrived at their various job sites. It is there that he began teaching himself some very basic Russian in order to communicate with the workers better. He still keeps in contact with some of them to this day. Read Strang's full profile.

back to top

Be a part of our community

Meet our Students

Come Join Us

Meet more students
Meet our alumni
Meet your language partners
The Language Flagship Logo

Funded by The Language Flagship, an initiative of the National Security Education Program, PSU’s Russian Flagship Program (RFP) is committed to preparing students for exciting careers that use critical language and culture skills in a globalized world.

the language flagship homepage