The UW–Madison Polish Program is pleased to announce that three students in our Polish language program: Sydney Kurszewski, Gavrielle Lent, and Ryan Rowe were awarded the 2025 Polanki College Achievement Awards. Congratulations and gratulacje!
Polanki’s College Achievement Awards are conferred to students who “have demonstrated high achievement and who are committed to understanding, preserving, or disseminating Polish culture and or language.” To be eligible, students need to be of junior, senior, or graduate status, attending a college in Wisconsin, have a minimum GPA of 3.0 (preferred), and be currently studying or significantly engaged with Polish culture. Traditionally, the prizes will be presented at the Awards Tea later this month at the Polish Center of Wisconsin in Franklin, WI.
Sydney Kurszewski is an undergraduate studying International Studies and Russian, with a certificate in Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies (REECAS). Sydney has enrolled in Polish language courses for six semesters now and received the competitive Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship to continue studying Polish in the 2024-2025 academic year.
Gavrielle Lent is a Ph.D. student in Slavic Languages and Literatures with a minor in Polish. Gavrielle is also a prior recipient of the Michael and Emily Lapinski Scholarship awarded to undergraduate and graduate students studying the Polish language, literature, and culture at UW–Madison. Recently, Gavrielle gave a presentation about heat metaphors as markers of the uncanny in Adam Mickiewicz’s Forefather’s Eve (Dziady) at the 2025 Wisconsin Slavic Conference and was awarded the J. Thomas Shaw Prize for Outstanding Graduate Paper.
Ryan Rowe is a master’s student in Historical Musicology in the Mead Witter School of Music. His research focuses on musical diplomacy, vocal music, and sound in East-Central Europe. Ryan has assisted with publications on Polish vocal music and is an avid promoter of Polish art song both as a performer and educator. For the 2024-2025 academic year, Ryan’s studies have been supported by the Leland Coon Fellowship in Musicology and a Foreign Language Area Studies Fellowship for Polish.
In the Spring 2025 semester, Gavrielle, Ryan, and Sydney are all together in the Third-Year/Fourth-Year Polish course (Slavic 277/278/305/306/331/332), taught entirely in Polish.
The University of Wisconsin–Madison has a long and rich history of past awardees of the Polanki prize, with a number of UW students at all levels receiving the recognition in the last few years, including our Polish majors. Most recent UW–Madison awardees since 2020 onward include:
- Kasia Wiech (Ph.D., Biomedical Engineering),
- Alyssa Bryl (Ph.D., History/German),
- Jacob Wadzinske (B.S., Computer Science),
- Rima Turner (Ph.D., History),
- Kinga Toczylowski (B.S., Business),
- Victoria Chowaniak (B.S., Biology),
- Celia O’Neil,
- Monica Juras (B.S., Chemistry, B.A., Polish),
- Kamila Postolowicz (M.S., Speech and Language Pathology),
- Aleksandra Grulkowski (B.A., English Literature and Polish),
- Marta Kowalik (Bachelor of Business Administration).
Read also:
Announcing 2025-2026 Polish Language, Literature, and Culture Awards at UW–Madison
UW–Madison Polish Faculty Elected to North American Association of Teachers of Polish Board
Professor Łukasz Wodzyński Receives Best Article in the Slavic and East European Journal Award
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UW–Madison Polish Studies Program
Educating the Wisconsin public about the Polish language, literature, and culture since 1936.
The University of Wisconsin–Madison Polish Studies Program is the oldest academic program in the United States focused on the study and teaching of the Polish language, literature, and culture. UW–Madison Polish studies offer a comprehensive package of Polish language, literature, and culture courses, a generous scholarship program designed exclusively for its students, and various extracurricular activities each academic year.
The program, dating back to 1935, offers beginning, intermediate, and advanced Polish language courses, in addition to intensive Polish courses for heritage speakers and (under)graduate students. In 2011, the program received the prestigious 2022 Award Distinction from the University of Warsaw for its achievements in promoting the Polish language and knowledge about Polish culture and history. The UW–Madison Polish program also offers a broad range of Polish culture courses on Polish film, contemporary Polish culture, Polish migration to the Americas, a survey of Polish culture from the Middle Ages to modern times, Polish comedy culture, and post-communism.
Each year, the UW Polish program awards scholarships for tuition through the Lapinski fund to undergraduate and graduate students studying the Polish language, literature, and culture. The Polish Student Association (PSA) provides a space for all students interested in events, activities, and learning about Poland and Polish culture. In collaboration with the Polish program faculty, the PSA also co-organizes the Madison Polish Film Festival, an annual celebration of Polish cinematography in Madison, Wisconsin, now in its fourth decade of existence.