Irina Tchikalova

Irina Tchikalova (Ph.D.) has graduated with honors from the History Department of the Belarusian State Teachers' University. She has got a full academic training in the field of History and the English Language. In 1990 she has become a lecturer at the same University. Currently she is an associate professor (docent), a post which she has held for the past several years.

Ms Tchikalova has been heavily involved both in teaching and studying, as well as in the administrative side of educational matters. Special manuals and handbooks which Ms Tchikalova has worked out are used by teachers and students. As being involved in a project related to the culture of Belarus within the European cultural context which she supervised in 1992 -- 1995, Ms Tchikalova was invited to deliver lectures at the Department of the East-Slavonic Philology of the Silesian University (Poland) in fall-winter term 1993/94.

Ms Tchikalova has also obtained a Master Degree in Women's Studies from the York University in England. The topic of her M. A. thesis is Women in Politics: Some Recent Developments In the British Labour Party. Currently she is in the processing of writing a book Women and Politics: A Comparative Study of British and American Political Environment. She has published a number of articles on her research. As an IREX visiting scholar she worked on collecting data for her project at the Institute for Research on Women at Rutgers, the state University of New Jersey within an academic year 1997/98.

Ms Tchikalova is a participant of many summer schools, conferences, workshops and seminars: European Women's Studies from Multicultural & Interdisciplinary Perspective at Utrecht (1996, The Netherlands) & Central European (1997, Budapest), in American Studies at European Humanities (1998, Minsk) Universities, the Second Ukranian Summer School in Gender Studies (1998, Foros); three days seminar Women and the Idea of Democracy in Belarus (1998, Minsk); the International Interdisciplinary conference Women Education Democracy (1998, Minsk) etc.

Ms Tchikalova is an author of number of publications on women's issues including the National Report Belarusian Women As Seen Through an Era" published in English, Belarusian and Russian by the United Nations Office in Minsk in 1997. The electronic version of the Report can be obtained on the Internet in English and Russian through the UN Office in Minsk web cite page.

After returning back from the US in May 1998 Ms Tchikalova was elected a member of the Board of USIA Alumni Association. She was also selected as a Civic Education Project Eastern Scholar, thus has become the part of the team designed to support academic reform in Central/Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. At the same year she has started the Center for Gender Studies at ENVILA, Non-State College for Women in Minsk.

More information is available on http://www.oocities.org/CapitolHill/Senate/5479