Czech language minor offers new global perspective

The Czech language program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln is more than an accumulation of credits – it's a story.

UNL has one of eight regularly offered Czech language programs in the United States, offering a minor in the Czech language. It partners with universities in the Czech Republic to bring Czech students to UNL and send UNL students to the Czech Republic.

Miluse Saskova-Pierce, an associate professor of Czech and Russian at UNL for 20 years, thinks the program benefits students and international relations between America and the Czech Republic.

"The Czech language students have been the bridge between the Czech land and America," Saskova-Pierce said. "The bridge has been going both ways. They worked together and translated the American Constitution in the '80s, and it became the model for democracy."

With only 12 million people worldwide who speak Czech and about 10 million of those people living in the Czech Republic, students at UNL still find use for the language.

"It does have many advantages," Saskova-Pierce said. "We have a minor who is a music major, Caroline Saslak, and she is going to study under one of the best violinists in Prague (the capital of the Czech Republic)."

If an American student passes the university exam in the Czech Republic in the Czech language, the student's university studies in the Czech Republic are paid for by the Czech government. UNL has had four students pass the exam in Czech in the last 15 years.

Shawn O'Donnell, a first-year history graduate student at UNL and previous president of the Czech Komensky Club, took Czech language classes as an undergraduate to better connect with his mother's family and heritage.

"I wanted to explore my heritage on my own without having to rely on family," O'Donnell said. "I had debated whether to study German or Spanish, but Czech seemed more interesting to me.

"I'm also a history major focusing on 20th century Europe, so learning a Slavic language made sense."

O'Donnell said many pivotal events of the 20th century are easily seen through the Czech perspective, and his knowledge of Czech will help him when he looks into a doctoral degree.

Michal Cvejn is a political science and international studies double major in the Czech Republic but has put his degrees on hold to study at UNL for a year. The Robitschek Scholarship made it possible for him.

In 1996, Paul Robitschek dedicated the scholarship to giving Czech students a taste of American culture and the opportunity to learn about democracy from an American perspective. Cvejn has been here six weeks so far.

English is a language that children in the Czech Republic begin to learn in third grade. Cvejn has taught English to adults in the Czech Republic and said that learning other languages is necessary in today's world.

Understanding another country's language allows you to understand their culture, Cvejn said.