The simple question “Where are you from?” isn’t so simple for Marcie Harder.

Born in Michigan, she spent her early childhood in Colorado but reached adulthood in Moscow, where she first learned Russian.

Harder, a Kansas University senior, refers to herself as a “third-culture kid.”

Neither fully American nor fully Russian, Harder, 21, has spent much of her life between two cultures. A daughter of Christian missionary parents in Russia, she fits in with the likes of military brats and diplomats’ children.

“You have a mixture of Russian culture and American culture, but yet you’re neither,” she said.

Before the Soviet Union collapsed, Harder’s parents worked in Colorado Springs, Colo., for a nonprofit group called Northstar, a Christian ministry within Campus Crusade for Christ that focused on missions to the Soviet Union. After the Soviet state collapsed, the Harders, a family of seven, moved to Russia. Harder lived there between the ages of 9 and 18.

Harder is a couple of weeks away from graduating from Kansas University with a degree in Slavic language and literature.

Why would anyone who lived in Russia for so long come to Kansas to study Slavic culture?

Harder said she wanted to work in Russia or central Europe as a diplomat or for a nonprofit aid organization, so she sought to gain a professional understanding of the region and culture.

“I have an understanding from Russia from the inside out,” she said, “but to work as a diplomat, I would need more than just a degree in political science. I’d need more of an academic view on the country I’d grown to love.”

The proximity of relatives and affordable tuition helped bring Harder to Kansas. And it didn’t hurt that KU has a well-regarded Russian and East European studies program.

KU senior Marcie Harder lived in Moscow between the ages of 9 and 18. After graduating this month from Kansas University, she plans to work with a nonprofit organization in southern Russia.

Currently, the KU area studies program, which includes programs for five world regions, is eighth among public universities (11th among all universities) in the amount of funding it receives from the U.S. Department of Education under Title VI, the program used to promote expertise on different areas in the world.

“We’re competitive with some impressive peer institutions,” said Maria Carlson, director of the Center for Russian and East European Studies. With 118 Title VI-funded area study centers existing in the United States, KU stands side by side with institutions such as Harvard, Columbia and the University of Michigan.

This past year has been a good one for the area studies program. Its faculty and staff received 12 Fulbright Fellowships, more than any other university in the country.

Harder said she hoped to join the ranks of those Fulbright fellows. She said she expected to hear back within the next few weeks whether she has been chosen to spend a year studying in Armenia. She has made two of three cuts and is among 24 finalists vying for one of 12 fellowships to study in Eurasia.

Regardless, Harder this summer plans to intern with a nonprofit organization in southern Russia, assisting people who have suffered from the Russian-Chechen war.

Harder says she specifically wants to work for a Christian organization so that she can help aid recipients meet their emotional, physical and spiritual needs.

“If there’s an opportunity to share what God has done in my life, I will share that,” she said, “but it will never be ‘you have to say this prayer,’ or ‘take this book’ to get aid.”

— Caleb Nothwehr is a journalism student at Kansas University.