KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 May 5, 2021 \u2013 In his four years at the 溏心vlog免费B站, Jay Rumas has shown an enthusiasm for politics and public service.<\/p>\n
The North Smithfield<\/strong> resident has served on the Student Senate, as president of 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s American Civil Liberties Union chapter, and as vice president of the College Democrats. He\u2019s spoken before the Faculty Senate during the successful campaign to cancel classes on Election Day, and before the Narragansett Town Council against an ordinance to limit the number of students in rental units. He\u2019s also worked on and volunteered for political campaigns for candidates in Woonsocket and statewide.<\/p>\n Now, Rumas, who graduates in May with a double major in political science and history, is exploring his academic interests in politics as part of a prestigious Fulbright scholarship. In September, Rumas will travel to the Slovak Republic for a nine-month research project investigating the appeal of populism among the country\u2019s Rusyn population.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it will be very interesting to see how the rhetoric of populist politicians impacts a minority group like the Rusyns, who have really fought to preserve their identity over the past 100 years,\u201d Rumas said. \u201cI want to see whether they have any different opinions on this matter than Slovaks, who are the dominant ethnic group. I think it’s not only relevant to the area, but also to the world and to America as well.\u201d<\/p>\n In Slovakia, Rusyns make up less than 1% of the country\u2019s 5.4 million people. Unlike other Slavic groups, they have always been subject to the power of other groups. Rumas wants to see how that has affected their support of populist leaders, who champion a political narrative of the majority \u2013 the people \u2013 versus the elite.<\/p>\n Rumas visited Slovakia in early 2020 as part of a study-abroad semester in Prague, Czech Republic. While there, he witnessed an election weekend. The country\u2019s voters frequently change parties, he said, and during that election, a political coalition with a membership of fewer than a thousand managed to overturn the party that had held power for a decade.<\/p>\n \u201cPopulism is very prevalent there,\u201d he said. \u201cOftentimes, you have a history of demagogues, people \u2018telling it like it is.\u2019 Much of this came out of the post-communist era. When the Berlin Wall fell and communism in these countries was essentially dismantled, the coalitions that had dismantled communism began to fragment. There was a very strong right-wing populist group that was part of one of those coalitions, and that faction holds power in Hungary now.\u201d<\/p>\n Rumas\u2019 interest in the topic and region grows out of his family history and the courses he\u2019s taken at 溏心vlog免费B站. His maternal grandmother\u2019s family fled Czechoslovakia in the late 1930s during the Nazi occupation. At 溏心vlog免费B站, Rumas has researched the region and post-communist politics with James Mace Ward, a senior lecturer in modern European history.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s very important to look at other countries for our sake as well as the world\u2019s,\u201d Rumas said. \u201cPolitical developments here also made me very interested in the rise of populism, seeing what has happened in our country and how I think democracy here and around the world has been threatened. That made the project much more important in my eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n Along with building his passion for the region and the topic, Rumas credits Ward with helping shape the idea for the project. Also, he said classes with Shanna Pearson-Merkowitz, a professor of political science, helped him develop the methodology he will use, along with skills in conducting polls and interviewing.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve had the pleasure of teaching\u00a0Jay\u00a0in everything from freshman surveys to graduate courses, and he\u2019s always been a stellar student,\u201d said Ward. \u201cHe has the good fortune to be blessed with not only a fine mind and an infallible work ethic, but also an urgent need to make the world better. His project offers welcome scholarship on an understudied people, the Rusyns, and should help us understand how to manage the challenges of populism.\u201d<\/p>\n Rumas\u2019 project does face a couple of hurdles. To research his project, he plans to interview members of the Rusyn minority group. He speaks \u201cvery little\u201d Czech, which is similar to Slovak, Slovakia\u2019s dominant language. But he plans to learn Slovak this summer.<\/p>\n The other hurdle, of course, is the pandemic. The Slovak Republic, which has had almost 400,000 COVID-19 cases, is among the countries with the highest travel warnings listed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. \u201cIt\u2019s not as highly vaccinated as the U.S., but hopefully that\u2019s going to pick up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Under the Fulbright U.S. Student Program, Rumas will be hosted by the Institute of Rusyn Language and Culture, part of the University of Pre\u0161ov, and will likely live in the city of Pre\u0161ov, in the eastern part of the country. When the project is complete, Rumas plans on publishing a paper or turning his research into a dissertation for graduate school.<\/p>\n The Fulbright U.S. Student Program is designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and those of other countries by providing high-achieving students with the opportunity to research, study or teach abroad. The Fulbright Study\/Research Awards program enables applicants to design their own research projects to work with institutions abroad. KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 May 5, 2021 \u2013 In his four years at the 溏心vlog免费B站, Jay Rumas has shown an enthusiasm for politics and public service. The North Smithfield resident has served on the Student Senate, as president of 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s American Civil Liberties Union chapter, and as vice president of the College Democrats. 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\n溏心vlog免费B站 students and recent graduates who are interested in applying to the Fulbright program should contact the 溏心vlog免费B站 Office of National Fellowships and Academic Opportunities<\/a> for guidance and institutional endorsement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"