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A Course of Success

This fall Olga Partan, ALM '95, sent both her children off to school. Anastasia, 18 years old, is a freshman at Georgetown University, and Alexander, 14 months, is in preschool. Yet Partan will not suffer from empty-nest syndrome; she will be off to school, too.

Olga Partan, ALB '95

Partan is a PhD candidate in Slavic studies at Brown University, where she teaches Advanced Topics in Russian Culture, a special seminar she developed for her department. A "collage course," it presents a broad view of Russian life through highly diverse media such as music, television, and classic literature. The course is "aimed at helping students understand fact and superstitition in Russian culture," she said. Its success last year produced a departmental nomination for the Brown Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Looking ahead, Partan's vocational goals include completing her degree and continuing to teach at the college level. Her dissertation will trace the influence of the Italian Commedia dell'Arte through three centuries of Russian culture. Looking back, Partan cherishes her experience at the Extension School and said it is "one of the best places in the world for an education. My experience at Brown showed me how well I was prepared by Harvard's ALM Program."

A Harvard education is not new to Partan's family. Her husband, Matthew, graduated from Harvard College in 1982 with a concentration in physics.

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