KU News Release

KU master’s degree student receives $3,500 Bramlage Family Foundation Scholarship

LAWRENCE — John Biersack, a master’s degree student in Russian history from Oconomowoc, Wis., is the winner of the 2008-09 Bramlage Family Foundation Scholarship, given by the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies at the University of Kansas.

The $3,500 scholarship is designed to encourage greater interest in KU’s master’s degree program in Russian, East European and Eurasian languages and area studies. Among selection requirements are a 3.5 grade-point average, intensive study in the Slavic languages, an undergraduate degree in the humanities, social sciences or related field and selection for the KU program.

Biersack, who received his bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Wisconsin in Whitewater, has also completed intensive summer study in Russian language at Beloit College. He is the son of Daniel and Nancy Biersack of Oconomowoc and a graduate of Oconomowoc High School.

In his graduate work, Biersack said he hasn’t chosen a specific topic but will probably combine the studies of both medicine and disease around the turn of the 20th century or earlier and the Russian Empire. After he finishes his master’s work, he plans to pursue doctoral work in history. As an undergraduate student in Wisconsin, he earned membership in Phi Alpha Theta national history honor society and completed a research project on Anglo-American perceptions of Russia and cholera in the 19th century that earned national Phi Alpha Theta recognition.

His master’s work, Biersack said, “was indeed spawned by my earlier research as an undergraduate on how societies reacted and perceived disease as well as perceptions of those affected. My graduate studies thus far at KU have been far broader in both time and subject matter, though my emphasis is Russian history. KU’s multidisciplinary course of study is what I sought after graduating with a bachelor’s in history.”

Biersack was granted a summer 2008 Foreign Language and Area Study fellowship to study Russian in St. Petersburg, Russia. He will serve as 2008-09 president of the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies’ graduate student organization. He also has been the student representative to the Russian, East European and Eurasian studies departmental executive committee.

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