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KU Slavic professor first non-Slovene national named Ambassador of Science by the Republic of Slovenia

Professor Marc Greenberg
The KU Department of Slavic Languages & Literatures and the School of Languages, Literatures & Cultures recently announced that Professor Marc Greenberg, director of the school, was awarded the 2019 prize “Ambassador of Science” by the Slovene Ministry of Education, Science & Sport on Nov. 20, 2019, in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Awarded annually, the Ambassador of Science prize recognizes individuals for excellence in research and achievements in their field of study. Dr. Greenberg was selected from a pool of six nominees in the Ambassador of Science category, recognizing his contributions to Slovene linguistics and promotion of the Slovene language. Dr. Greenberg is the first non-Slovene national to receive this award.
“The award is a great honor for me as well as for KU, which has long been a center for language learning,” said the professor. “It is a privilege to have been able to study the Slovene language and get deeply into it. Slovene has so much linguistic variation — some 48 dialects (Russia has only three dialects) — that it is a spectacular laboratory for scholarly inquiry.”
KU has a long tradition of engagement with Slovene language, literature and the arts and, most recently, KU, under the leadership of Dr. John Hedeman with the assistance of Barbara Koval Nelson, honorary consul of the Republic of Slovenia in Kansas City, has developed a study abroad program for business and engineering students to learn about entrepreneurship in Slovenia. Dr. Greenberg said more than 30 students now visit Slovenia each year and “are awestruck by this amazing country.”
“We’re one of the only institutions in the country to offer Slovenian, and to a large part, that’s because of Dr. Greenberg and his efforts,” said Dr. Ani Kokobobo, chair of the KU Department of Slavic Languages & Literatures. “I think, in many ways, this award is a recognition of his lifetime effort, advocacy and research in the area of Slovenian.”
“It is a great honor, not only for Dr. Greenberg, but for the Slovenian community in the United States and for the University of Kansas” said Hon. Consul Koval-Nelson. “To be the first non-Slovenian recognized as the Ambassador of Science by the Slovenian Ministry of Education, Science and Sport is a rare accomplishment and one that all Slovenians, especially those who know Dr. Greenberg, can be extremely proud.”
Dr. Greenberg, who is Jewish, received his M.A. at the University of Chicago (1984) and Ph.D. at UCLA (1990), both in Slavic linguistics. He began his tenure at the University of Kansas in 1990. He has held numerous prestigious fellowships, including from the National Endowment for the Humanities, American Council of Learned Societies, American Philosophical Society, U.S. Department of Education, the Swiss Science Foundation, and the Moravian-Silesian Regional Research Fund. In 2017 he was elected to the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts as a Corresponding Member.
Dr. Greenberg pointed out that Slovenia has a Jewish community.
“Historically its strongest Jewish culture was preserved in Prekmurje, near the Hungarian border, where I did my dialect fieldwork in the 1980s,” he said. “The 18th century synagogue in Lendava is still standing today.”
The award ceremony was televised in Slovenia and is available at this link: https://4d.rtvslo.si/arhiv/podelitve-nagrad/174652874 (requires free login).
The KU Department of Slavic Languages & Literatures is part of the KU School of Languages, Literatures & Cultures. The Department offers undergraduate, master’s and Ph.D. degree tracks with Russian, Polish and South Slavic emphases.