Program History

Founded in 1977, the Russian Language Institute (RLI) at Bryn Mawr supports the study and teaching of Russian in the U.S. by providing an intensive-immersion setting for both teachers and learners of the language.

Through RLI, Bryn Mawr was one of the first American institutions in the U.S. to establish an ongoing cooperative exchange agreement with the Pushkin Institute of the Russian Language in Moscow. The agreement covered exchanges of students, faculty, and teaching materials, some of which are still used in the summer programs. While Bryn Mawr today cooperates with several other institutions in Russia, through the College's cooperative agreement with the American Council of Teachers of Russian (ACTR), it maintains its links to the Pushkin Institute.

Most recently, the Department of Russian and the Russian Language Institute at Bryn Mawr College have been designated as a Domestic Russian Language Flagship Program. The Language Flagship was created under the auspices of the National Security Education Program (NSEP)/National Flagship Language Program (NFLP) to address the critical need for U.S. professionals to use Russian at the highest levels of functional proficiency. The program is an intensive language-training program tailored to students' professional interests and academic specialization. Students at Bryn Mawr, Haverford, or Swarthmore Colleges who have already completed one year of Russian and signed a Russian Language Flagship statement of agreement can apply to RLI as a Flagship student. For more information on the Russian Language Flagship at Bryn Mawr, please see the web site.