The U.S. – U.S.S.R. Exchange

In 1988-1990, Susan Hartman, FSoS alumni and Director of CONNECT US-USSR, spent countless hours transporting proposals between Moscow and the University of Minnesota campus, meeting with scholars, arranging visas, translators, and transportation. Hartman and Jan Hogan, department head, wrote grants and received funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, Wilder Foundation, Soros Foundation, and the UMN.

a UMN professor and a professor from the USSR — Department Head Jan Hogan with Tatiana Gurko, a member of the U.S.S.R. delegation.

The exchange began in 1988 with eight FSoS faculty hosting seven family scholars from the USSR Academy of the Sciences in Moscow to discuss family issues.

The following year, the eight FSoS faculty traveled to Russia for 10 days to focus on common family issues such as divorce, gender roles in marriage, sexuality, and intergenerational relations.

Left to right, front row: Leah Doherty, Marlene Johnson (MN Lt. Gov.), Karen Olson; second row: Ludmilla Yasnaya (Russian), Susan Hartman (exchange organizer), Jan Hogan, Shirley Zimmerman (partially hidden), Pete Zimmernan, and David Olson; back row: Sharon Danes, Pauline Boss, Jim Maddock, Noel Larson, Dan Detzner, Bill Doherty.

A book was published with Russian and FSoS co-authored chapters, Families Before and After Perestroika: Russian and U.S. Perspectives (Guilford Press, 1994). The book was co-edited by Hogan and Harold Grotevant.