KU News Release

KU doctoral student’s essay on Slovakia’s gypsies wins award

LAWRENCE — Brett Richard Chloupek, who is pursuing two graduate degrees at the University of Kansas, is the 14th winner of the Roy D. Laird Essay Contest sponsored by the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies.

For his essay, “Slovakia’s Gypsies: Centuries of Problems, Few New Solutions,” Chloupek will receive the $500 award during the center’s final brown bag discussion of the semester at noon Tuesday, May 6, at 318 Bailey Hall.

Chloupek is a Foreign Language Area Studies Fellow from the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies. He is a master’s degree student in Russian and East European studies and a doctoral student in geography. He plans to teach at the university level with a focus on cultural and political geography, particularly in Eastern and Central Europe.

In his studies abroad in Slovakia, Chloupek said he noticed the Roma, or gypsy populations, continue to have problems with governmental policies.

“For their entire 1,000-year existence in the region, they have been at the bottom of the social order and continue to exist on the periphery of the society,” he said. “Because of my focus on political geography, I find the Roma a particularly interesting phenomenon. They resist cultural assimilation and for this reason, they often come into conflict with the larger Slovak population. This is not something unique to Slovakia, but Slovakia as country is a great case study because it has a very large (and growing) Roma population. I hope to learn more about this issue again this summer when I travel back to the region.”

Chloupek is the son of Randy and Shelly Chloupek of Harvard, Neb. He earned a bachelor’s degree in geography at the University of Nebraska-Kearney and a master’s degree in geography and a certificate in geographic information systems from Oklahoma State University in Stillwater. At Oklahoma State, Chloupek was a National Science Foundation GK-12 Fellow at the Rural Alliance for Improving Science Education. He was also a geographic information systems consultant with Spatial Analytics Inc. in Kearney, Neb.

He is a member of Phi Kappa Phi honor society, Gamma Theta Upsilon, an international geographical honor society, and the Association of American Geographers. As student body president at the University of Nebraska-Kearney, he was on the University of Nebraska board of regents.

The essay contest is named for the late Roy D. Laird, a longtime member of the Russian and East European studies and political science faculties, and Betty Laird, who established the fund through KU Endowment. Chloupek’s name will be added to the list of previous winners on a plaque outside the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies office in Bailey Hall.

KU Endowment is the independent, nonprofit organization serving as the official fundraising and fund-management organization for KU. Founded in 1891, KU Endowment is the first foundation of its kind at a U.S. public university.

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