Registration for the 2026 National Post-Secondary Russian Essay Contest is now available!

The contest is open to all students enrolled in Russian language courses at North American institutions of higher education. Please note that all instructors registering students must be current members of ACTR. The participation fee is $6.00 per student.

Register your students at actressays.byu.edu. (You will first need to register as a contact person. Registration data does not carry over from previous years.) Students must be registered at least one day before they write the essay.

The contest may be administered between February 9 and February 27.

Important Dates and Deadlines

• January 15: First day to register students (students must be registered at least one day before writing the essay)
• February 6: Essay topic announced via email to institutions with registered students. If you register students after this date, you will receive the email within one business day of registration.
• February 9: First day to administer the essay contest
• February 10: First day to upload essays
• February 27: Last day to administer the essay contest
• March 2: Last day to upload essays and pay fees
• April 10–15: Results posted and digital certificates available on the website

If you have any questions, please reach out to the essay contest co-chairs, Maria Khotimsky (khotimsk@mit.edu)  and José Vergara (jvergara@mit.edu).

It is the time of the year to nominate a stellar student in your program for the annual ACTR Post-Secondary Russian Scholar Laureate Award - PSRSLA-2026. Organized under the auspices of the American Council of Teachers of Russian (ACTR), this award seeks to provide national recognition for one student per program who is either a junior or a senior in college. Each program chooses its laureate, and ACTR provides a certificate and congratulatory letter. Community colleges can nominate one second-year student. 

The nomination process is very easy, and the award is offered free of charge by ACTR as a service to the profession. The nomination deadline date is March 1, 2026.

For guidelines on submission criteria, please visit https://www.actr.org/PSRSLA_Guidelines. Please note that nominations must be submitted electronically at https://forms.gle/vphtz6bnbfsoLhgd9. Only one nomination will be accepted per Russian language program. Award certificates will be mailed to nominators by April.  

Questions? Suggestions? Please contact us at iza.savenkova@gmail.com

We look forward to receiving your nominations for PSRSLA-2026.

Izolda (Iza) Savenkova 
PSRSLA Co-chair

We are happy to inform you that the 2026 NEWL exam dates are now available on this website.

Additionally, the NEWL Practice Exam is now offered year-round in both short and full-length formats (depending on the language).

Access the practice exam here.

If your school plans to participate in the 2026 NEWL exam cycle, please join us for an upcoming informational webinar. If your school no longer teaches Arabic, Korean, Portuguese, or Russian, or if you would prefer not to receive future communications, please let me know by replying to this email, and I will update our contact list accordingly.

The 2026 registration and webinar links will be made available early next year. Please check the NEWL website periodically for updates.