This month in history (56 years ago)
The Center for Russian and East European Studies was established in 1961, but its roots extend to the founding in 1946 of a Committee on the Program in Russian Studies, and to the launching of the first Sputnik satellite Oct. 4, 1957, by the Soviet Union. This event dramatically increased interest in Russian Studies in the United States and at U-M. The greatest expansion took place in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, where enrollment jumped from 200 to 600 students in three years. — From “The University of Michigan, an Encyclopedic Survey.”