The ACTR Post Secondary Russian Scholar Laureate Award (PSRSLA) is a free program offered to U.S. Russian language departments and programs.

​Organized under the auspices of the American Council of Teachers of Russian (ACTR), the PSRSLA seeks to provide national recognition for our outstanding junior and senior university-level students -- those students who best embody an enthusiasm for studying the Russian language and learning about Russian area studies. ACTR provides this program as a service to the profession. We encourage every Russian language program
to take advantage of this opportunity to publicly recognize their top junior or senior students.

Since 2019, this award is open to community colleges with two years of Russian. These colleges are welcome to nominate one of their students who will be continuing their Russian language studies in a four-year university.

Nomination period: January 1st - March 1. No late nominations accepted. Please use the nomination link. 

Participate in PSRSLA and let our best and brightest know that we appreciate their work and value their commitment to all things Russian! Individual Russian departments and programs, not ACTR, decide which of their students are most deserving of this award. All laureates receive ACTR certificates and letters. 

History note: In 2007, Ben Rifkin and Jane Shuffelton, members of ACTR Board of Directors, suggested expanding the ACTR Russian Scholar Laureate Award, which at that time was open only to secondary-level Russian language programs, to college and university programs. That marked the beginning of the ACTR Post-Secondary Russian Scholar Laureate Award (PSRSLA). Cynthia A. Ruder, a member of ACTR Board of Directors and PSRSLA Chair from 2007 to 2012 designed the format of this award and worked hard to reach out to as many Russian programs as possible, bringing the number of participants from twenty institutions in 2007 to fifty in 2012. John Schillinger, Chair of the Committee on College and Pre-College Russian (CCPCR), as well as the SEELANGS listserve, have continuously provided invaluable help in spreading information about this award to an ever-growing number of programs.