East Central University professor, Dr. Mara Sukholutskaya, received the 2022 American Council of Teachers of Russian Distinguished Service Award.
Sukholutskaya is a professor of Russian and director of Global Education at ECU.
“Mara Sukholutskaya stands out as a tireless champion for Russian language and culture, a respected pedagogue and dedicated teacher,” the presenters said.
In addition to this award, her honors include the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages (AATSEEL) Excellence in Teaching Award and the Excellence in Teaching World Languages Award from the Southwest Conference on Language Teaching (SWCOLT). Her list of publications is long and varied.
She has served ACTR as a member of the Board of Directors and also as a representative of the Central Association of Russian Teachers of America (CARTA). She has been a judge of ACTR’s National Russian Essay Contest for many years, reading and rating of essays by pre-college students of Russian. She worked tirelessly for several years on an ACTR committee charged with rewriting the materials for ACTR’s Olympiada of Spoken Russian
The year 2023 marks the 25th anniversary of CARTA, which Sukholutskaya founded in in 1988. She continues to serve as the association’s President. She has brought many distinguished speakers to campus, including Yevgeny Yevtushenko and Mikhail Gorbachev.
The American Council of Teachers of Russian was founded in 1974 as an association of language and area professionals involved with Russian language, literature and linguistics. ACTR promotes the study and teaching of the Russian language, literature and culture and represents Russian language teachers in pre-K-16 (including community-based schools), graduate, and continuing education, encouraging professional dialogue within the field and amongst fellow Russianists around the world.