Mary Kissel '99 presents a paper as Professor Marshall Goldman looks on, as part of Russian Studies Day last Friday. Photo by Jon Chase.

Ask any undergraduate what it was like to write a senior thesis, and chances are he or she will tell you it was a long and difficult process, comprising endless reading and research, the painful struggle to formulate a topic, and the long trek of writing and revising.

And yet, in most cases, few get to hear about this herculean effort. Unlike graduate students, who must undergo the time-honored ritual of the dissertation defense, undergraduates often have no audience for their work beyond their thesis committee.

Last Friday, April 30, the Kathryn W. and Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Russian Studies, in conjunction with the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, offered graduating seniors a chance to speak publicly about the research projects they have worked so hard to complete.

Russian Studies Day gave 15 students from Harvard, Wellesley, and Wheaton an opportunity to discuss their senior theses with an audience made up of faculty, fellow students, and family. The academic portion of the day was followed by an hour of entertainment during which students performed music, read poetry, and acted in a scene from Gypsies, a play by Aleksandr Pushkin.

"I thought it went exceptionally well," said Marshall Goldman, associate director of the Davis Center. "What stood out for me was the competence of many of the students both in the academic and the performance sections. It was really a celebration of academic excellence. I think this is something that every department of the University should do."

Senior Dunja Popovic, who spoke about her thesis "Outside the Walls of Church and State: Language as Preservation in Brodsky and Pushkin," agreed that the colloquium provided a rare chance for undergraduates to share their research with other members of their community.

"Generally undergraduates don't get to present their work at conferences," she said. "You spend a long time doing the work and then you only have three people reading the thesis. Russian Studies Day gives undergraduates an opportunity to get feedback from other undergraduates and from professors."

The colloquium was organized into four panels, two in the humanities and two in social sciences. Each student had 15 minutes to present his or her research, followed by seven or eight minutes of questions.

This is the fourth time Russian Studies Day has taken place, and, according to Goldman, the number of students participating has nearly doubled since last year.

Russian Studies Day was one of several programs made possible by a $10 million gift from the Shelby Cullom Davis Foundation in 1996. The Center is named for Davis and his widow, Kathryn W. Davis.

According to Goldman, it was at the urging of Mrs. Davis, a Wellesley alumna, and her daughter Diana Davis Spencer, a Wheaton alumna, that students from Wellesley and Wheaton College were invited to participate in the event.