This scholarship gives between $500 and $2000. You'll need to apply between January and February for our May 2017 trip. Here's the link.

If you're a UH student, you pay into this fund when you sign up for classes--this is your money, so be sure to take advantage of the scholarship!

I found out about a scholarship opportunity at today's pitch party--the Gilman scholarship. It's for students who are receiving Pell Grants, and the folks from the UH Learning Abroad office encouraged me to pass it on to students going on the Russia trip.

The website (kind of hard to see in the photo at right) is www.iie.org/gilman. Good luck! And don't forget to apply for an IEFS scholarship through UH Learning Abroad.

It was great to see so many of you at our table at the pitch party. If you wrote down your name and email, you'll be hearing from me soon with details on how to sign up for the trip. Or, you can fill out the interest form on this page.

If you are looking for scholarship support for the trip, check out www.uh.edu/learningabroad. You will especially want to apply for the IEFS scholarship. UH students needing a US Passport can apply and campus and even get the cost of the passport reimbursed. See the Learning Abroad website for details on the Passport for Coogs program.

If you've already signed up for the trip, help us spread the word by talking to your friends! We are anticipating filling the trip, and registration is first-come, first-served.

Registration for our trip is now open. I'm posting the registration form below. Submit it in person or to my email at jjrainbow@uh.edu. Registration is first-come, first-served.

No coursework is required to go on the trip, but Dr. David Rainbow will teach a Russia-themed course in the spring that you are welcome to take as preparation for the trip. Look for that in the upcoming Honors College Coursebook.

Come see us tomorrow, September 9, at the Study Abroad/Study Away pitch party in Rockwell Pavilion from 1 to 2.

Set your calendar now for the Honors College Study Abroad/Study Away pitch party, September 9 from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. in the Rockwell Pavilion, on the second floor of the library. To find the party, go up the spiral stairs in front of the Honors College and continue straight ahead.

We'll have a table for the Russia trip, and there will be tables for other Honors College and University of Houston trips. You'll also be able to meet folks from various related offices and organizations around campus, including the Office of Learning Abroad and the Passport for Coogs program. Learn how to apply for scholarships for the trip and how to get reimbursed for your passport fee. You can even apply for a passport without leaving campus!

You'll get a novelty passport and be able to collect stamps from the various tables. It will be a lot of fun. Hope to see you there, and bring a friend!

We're now on the Honors College study abroad page, where you can find information about our trip to Russia and the other travel opportunities this year.

And stay tuned to this blog for updates and information. I'm excited to meet several hundred incoming freshmen tomorrow at Honors Retreat. I hope some of you will join us in Russia!

If you're interested, there is a form on this page, or you can email me or David with questions. We'll be able to start collecting deposits in September.

Things are falling into place quickly as the beginning of the semester approaches. We'll have an official flyer in a few days, but here's what I can tell you now (subject to finalization but it's fairly firm already). The cost of our tour, including round trip airfare from Houston, accommodations, tips, entry fees, meals (except one dinner), ground transportation, visa support and registration, etc. (see my previous post on what's included) is $3,450.

​You will be able to secure a spot in early September with a deposit of $450. Then there will be a series of roughly equal monthly installments between then and the beginning of March, when you will need to be all paid up. Of course, you can pay earlier if you like. I'll have more information soon regarding the refundability schedule and the other fine print.

​If you want to get on my list ​now​, I'll make sure you get a chance to put down your deposit first-come, first-served once we get into September. We haven't run the trip to Russia before, and we are hoping the spots go quickly! Just send me an email at jjrainbow@uh.edu or use the form on this page.

​One more thing...

​Don't forget to apply for IEFS scholarships, use travel funds you may have received with your scholarship package, and apply for outside funds. There may be additional scholarships for Honors College students, depending on availability of funds and individual eligibility.

Russia 2017: Moscow and St. Petersburg
May 15–25, 2017

Our trip includes:

• Round trip airfare from Houston
• Accommodations in centrally located mini-hotels (boutique, tourist class)
• Double occupancy
• Visa support, processing, and registration
• Bus and train transportation, guides, and entrance tickets
• All meals, with the exception of one dinner set aside for individual exploration

Places we will visit include:

• The Kremlin, Armory and Grounds
• Red Square
• St. Basil's Cathedral
• Lenin's Mausoleum
• Christ the Savior Cathedral
• Walking tour of central Moscow
• Day trip to Sergeiv Posad
• Overnight train to St. Petersburg (kupe cabins)
• Walking tour of St. Petersburg
• St. Isaac's Cathedral and Colonnade
• Peter and Paul Fortress
• Peterhof
• Siege Memorial Museum
• Day trip to Novgorod
• The Hermitage
• Canal boat ride in St. Petersburg

Use the interest form on this page or email me at jjrainbow@uh.edu to reserve a spot. We will begin collecting deposits in September.

While this is our first trip to Russia, the Honors College has a long tradition of excellence in study abroad and study away trips. Here are four reasons you should make a trip a part of your undergraduate experience:

• Friendships that will last a lifetime. On a study trip, you spend a lot of time with your fellow travelers, the folks with whom you will not only spend every waking hour for one to two weeks, but also share some transformative cultural and educational experiences. On an Honors trip, you also have the chance to get to know professors and staff--and on this trip, our dean--in a way that is just not possible in Houston.
  
• Classroom learning connected to the world. As a student traveler, you will visit places connected to the pages of your Human Situation books: Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto, Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground or Crime and Punishment, and so on. You might even be inspired to read one of the classics that usually doesn't make it into the Human Sit syllabus, like The Brothers Karamozov or Tolstoy's War and Peace, or attend a performance like the Houston Grand Opera's recent production of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin.
• Experienced leaders. Yes, we hire the best local guides and work with the best tour vendors. But Honors faculty and staff themselves represent an additional wealth of experience in international travel and study abroad. The faculty for this trip represent dozens of student trips, and years of living abroad, including in Russia. Honors College trips reflect both the immense practical wisdom and the high educational standards of our faculty.
• It will never be easier for you than right now. Honors trips are affordably priced, and generously supported through scholarships. You may have received summer travel support as part of your financial aid package. If not, you can apply for an IEFS scholarship or for an Honors College scholarship. But setting aside the dollars and cents, your undergraduate years are a great time to see the world. It will never be easier for you to drop what you are doing for a couple weeks and travel. Invest in yourself and your education, and consider joining us next summer!

In 1917 two revolutions took place in Russia that have affected the world ever since. In February, a 300-year-old Romanov dynasty came to an end. What started with women marching in the streets of St. Petersburg demanding bread ended eight days later with the tsar’s forced abdication of his throne. Then in October, Vladimir Lenin and the Bolshevik Party seized power in the name of the people. Lenin created the world’s first Marxist socialist state, but not before having to fight and win a three-year-long civil war that ravaged—and eventually reconstituted—the Russian empire. More than ten million people were killed from 1917-1922, and millions more fled into exile abroad. The years of revolution and civil war that began in 1917 utterly transformed the lives of 200 million former subjects of the Russian tsar. The Soviet Union was being born. It was a country built to eliminate injustice forever.
 
If you want to learn more, come on our trip to Russia in May 2017. While in St. Petersburg and Moscow we will visit several of the most significant revolutionary sites.

For more information on the trip and on Dr. Rainbow's fall 2017 Russian history course, see here and here.