Winfield ? A retired U.S. ambassador to Belarus has established a center at Southwestern College to study the former member of the Soviet Union.

David H. Swartz collaborated with Andy Sheppard, Southwestern’s academic vice president, to begin the center for Belarusian Studies at the college in Winfield.

Swartz, who was in Winfield on Tuesday to work on plans for the center, has been interested in Belarusian studies for decades. After graduating from Southwestern in 1964, Swartz earned his master’s degree in Soviet and East European studies at Florida State University in 1966.

He held embassy and consular posts in Rotterdam, London, Moscow, Kiev, Zurich, Calgary and Warsaw. After leaving the diplomatic service in 1996, Swartz became president of the European Humanities University Foundation Inc., a group he founded in Minsk, Belarus.

The university was forced to close in 2004, and the foundation subsequently dissolved, enabling Swartz to award its money to Southwestern for the center. Swartz said his goal in establishing the center is to promote the revival of the Belarusian nation through higher education.

Belarus, a country about the size of Kansas, is between Russia, Ukraine and Poland. Although it became independent of Soviet rule in 1991, its 10.5 million inhabitants are still under a dictatorship, and there are restrictions on freedom of speech, press, peaceful assembly and religion, he said.

Because part of the mission of Southwestern College is leadership through service in the world, both Sheppard and Swartz said organizing the center fits the college’s mission.

“It’s about outreach and dissemination of country and culture. This will allow us to share this culture with the students here at Southwestern,” Sheppard said.